


between the mountains and the valley we built a monument to our regret

by eneiryu



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: And How They Can Help Us Save Each Other, By Learning to Save Ourselves, Guilt, M/M, POV Alternating, Redemption, Trauma, Trauma Recovery, Unlikely Friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:33:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 60,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23481724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eneiryu/pseuds/eneiryu
Summary: Honestly, this right here is why Theo has always considered friendships more trouble than they’re worth.
Relationships: Alec/Nolan (Teen Wolf), Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 108
Kudos: 326





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Quarantine everyone--have a 60,000 word beast of a fic.
> 
> All the credit, love, and appreciation to [ExtraSteps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraSteps/pseuds/ExtraSteps) and [snaeken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snaeken), who once again not only provided the initial idea, but continuous feedback, and invaluable beta reading and general encouragement. 
> 
> I have an ever-growing prompt list that I am continuously falling more behind on, but if it hasn't become _incredibly_ obvious, this is how I'm dealing with our current global crisis. So, prompt 'em if you've got 'em.
> 
> Thanks as always to everyone who comments, kudos, reblogs, or just reads and enjoys--you make my day every time.

**i. the mountains**

* * *

**_Theo_ **

The tracking bracelet is a polite fiction, but it’s also the only thing keeping Argent from taking more drastic measures, so Theo had held out his wrist, and let Argent fasten it on, and hadn’t said a word.

Liam does, though.

“It’s kind of idiotic, isn’t it?” He comments, leaned forward with the front of his thighs resting against the arm of the McCall living room couch, boxes all around them and an alarming crash from outside by the moving van, Scott immediately yelping out _it’s fine, it’s fine, nothing’s broken!_ “You could just take it off.”

Theo rolls his eyes, and huffs out an aggravated sigh, and straightens up _again_ from where he’d been leaned over with his hands on the underside of the couch, waiting to lift it. “Not without Argent immediately knowing. He’s wearing the companion, and it would react the second I took mine off.”

“Huh,” Liam says, mouth pursing in a thoughtful moue. Outside, Ms. McCall is asking her son _who taught you how to stack boxes, Godzilla?_ , and Corey and Mason are laughing, loud and clear and ringing. “So it’s a test?”

“You’ve heard,” Theo replies dryly, “of giving someone enough rope to hang themselves with?”

Liam makes a face. “That’s vividly morbid.” He pauses, and considers. “Or morbidly vivid, maybe.”

“Yeah, sure,” Theo agrees, huffing. “Are you actually planning on helping me _lift_ this couch sometime today, or just admiring it?”

Liam rolls his eyes and makes a sarcastic, obscene gesture, but he also crouches and gets his hands on the underside of the couch, so Theo lets it go.

Ms. McCall all but buys out the current stock of the local pizza place a few hours later, and the pack eats it sprawled around and between the just-moved-in chaos of half-unpacked boxes, and sitting on whatever furniture is available in the new joint McCall-Argent residence. Ms. McCall’s and Argent’s downsizing from house to condo means that they’re all squeezed in tighter than usual, and Theo winds up wedged in between a precarious stack of brown boxes with _Living Room_ scrawled along the side in spiky black capitols, and Liam, their elbows knocking every time one of them moves or takes a bite.

Theo doesn’t mind the constant bumping annoyance, though; the position lets him keep himself half-hidden behind the bulk of Liam’s shoulders, his left wrist feeling heavier than his right and his eyes constantly drawn to his bracelet’s twin across the room, the dark brown slash of it bisecting the pale skin of Argent’s forearm like a wound.

There’s more unpacking to be done but the heavy lifting is pretty much finished, and so Ms. McCall sends everyone but her son—and Stiles, who doesn’t so much invite himself over as assume his permanent welcome—home after they’re done eating, though not before extracting individual promises from each of them to return to the former McCall house the next day to help with the last of the clean-up.

“How exactly are they planning on cleaning up the _bullet holes?_ ” Liam mutters, not exactly unkindly, but he still takes a throw pillow to the back of the head when Scott overhears him. Theo rolls his eyes and grabs Liam’s arm as Liam whips around with a half-hollered war cry, and drags him protesting out the door; Theo’s truck had been one of the main moving vehicles, and Liam had ridden with him.

Back in his truck, he drops Liam off at home with minimal further incident, and drives to Derek’s building, and takes the stairs, one at a time, to the seventh floor.

Apartment 713 is exactly where he’d left it, if not exactly _how_ he’d left it; Theo rolls open the front door and spends a few seconds hovering in the doorway with his hand on the jamb, and then he shakes himself with a harsh noise, and steps inside. He drops his keys on a former-McCall-house side table next to the door, and throws his jacket over a former-McCall-house armchair in the living-room-of-sorts constructed of clustered, second-hand furniture, and heads upstairs to the apartment’s bathroom, skirting the former-McCall-house guest bed as he does.

 _Chris and I are going from a four-bedroom house with a_ basement _, to a two-bedroom condo, Theo_ , Ms. McCall had said, dry as tinder and with a note of finality in her voice that had preemptively ended all argument. _Congratulations on becoming the McCall house furniture graveyard._

 _Well, when you put it like that_ , Theo had said, and then had been infinitely grateful when Scott had yelled a confused question about where, exactly, his mom wanted a set of old antique chairs to go; it’d given him an excuse to slip away before the strange, twisting feeling in his chest could make its way onto his face.

Now he steps back out of the bathroom—tossing a former McCall house hand towel back over the sink as he goes—and deliberately ignores the bed as he heads back downstairs.

He winds up sprawled back on the couch he’d involuntarily, if not exactly unwillingly, inherited, his tablet in his lap and his nose all but permanently wrinkled at the ground-in scents of teenage boy and junk food and spilled, sugary soda in the cushions; the couch had lived out the majority of its life in the McCall basement, after all. Still, as time goes on Theo starts to unravel the deeper, more subtle scents: Scott and Stiles and Derek and Liam—a lighter, floral perfume that he at first mistakes for Lydia’s, and then realizes with a jolt belongs to…someone else—and the rest of Scott’s varied band of misfits, layered on top of and woven in between each other’s to form the tightly-coupled tapestry of the McCall pack, itself.

Theo finds himself taking deep drags of it as the hours wear on, his eyes drifting closed in spite of himself as he holds it in his lungs before letting it eke slow, slow, back out of his lungs.

He wakes up in a cold sweat some time later, gasping himself awake and with his fingers already scrabbling wildly at his chest. His tablet clattering loudly to the floor from where it’d slid off his stomach sounds approximately like a bomb going off in the pitch-black silence of his cavernous apartment, and Theo turns his face against the cushion below his head as he pants out short, shallow, helpless breaths. The press of his nose to the weave of the fabric means he gets a mouthful of mingled McCall pack scent on the first breath, and he nearly jerks back away from it, before he—doesn’t.

He spends maybe five minutes with his face buried—with his face _hidden_ —just like that in the cushions, just breathing, and then he makes a harsh noise, and swings himself to his feet, and grabs his keys and jacket as he heads for his door.

_**Nolan** _

Nolan is the only student from Beacon Hills High at Gabe’s funeral.

He’s one of the only non-relatives, _period_. Everyone else is family, or friends or coworkers or acquaintances of Gabe’s tight-lipped parents, the both of them with rigid spines and tense eyes; there’d been a whole local news exposé on the rapid rise-and-fall of Monroe’s ‘cult,’ after all. Nolan thinks he spots one of the journalists from the _Beacon Hills Courier_ hovering at the edge of the graveyard.

He swallows, and burrows a little further into his coat.

The service is short, generic and almost mind-numbing in its abstractness; the black-frocked priest Gabe’s parents had selected seems unable to find a way to address the fact Gabe had been killed by one of his own partners while he’d been in the midst of trying to kill someone else. It turns the whole sermon into a white-washed mess, a surrealist smear of bland platitudes and lip-service to the qualities of better people than Gabe had ever been, _forgiveness_ and _compassion_ and _understanding_ , but Nolan still remembers the way that Gabe had half-pinned him back against a locker and said _I did it for you_ in a fierce whisper, his eyes alight with the inner fire of a true believer.

The service ends and Nolan doesn’t stick around afterwards to try and greet Gabe’s parents.

But he doesn’t go home, either. His parents had become as equally tight-lipped as Gabe’s, as equally unsure how to address Nolan’s part in Monroe’s brief reign of terror as the priest had been in addressing Gabe’s. The last thing his mother had said to him had been a stilted request to pass the salt; it’d turned out that one of her best friends from high school had been a werewolf.

The woman’s funeral was next week.

Nolan winds up shivering less than twenty minutes into his aimless wandering. It’s a cold, brisk day, even for fall, and the slacks and button-down shirt he’d found to wear under his jacket provide little in the way of warmth. Even with his hands buried in his pockets his fingers still feel like icicles, curled tight against his palms and shaking. But still Nolan walks, skirting the high school, and the long stretch of rural road that would take him to the abandoned zoo, and the clustered set of warehouses downtown where Monroe had stabbed a tied-up werewolf with a crossbow bolt and then armed Nolan’s friends and neighbors and fellow townspeople with guns, and knives, and the seductive idea that they didn’t have to be afraid anymore.

 _Doesn’t feel good, does it?_ Liam had spat at him not long after, Nolan’s hands in his pockets just like they are now and shaking, shaking, shaking, _Nobody trusts you anymore_.

After a while he winds up in a coffee shop in a rundown strip mall towards the edge of town, its only saving grace its attached drive-thru lane and its proximity to the highway. Nolan orders a cup of black coffee and then lets it go cold, untouched, as he huddles back into a corner of the shop in a lumpy, overstuffed armchair, his head dropped against the wall and his eyes constantly drooping shut as he stares out at the dirty parking lot through the glass windows and tries not to think. A few hours in one of the baristas gets halfway to coming towards him before one of their coworkers stops them with a hand on their arm; Nolan sees it out of the corner of his eye as the woman who’d stopped her coworker shakes her head, and glances at him with a sympathetic grimace.

He huddles a little further into his chair, and doesn’t say a word.

But sympathy or no sympathy, they kick him out at closing time. Nolan goes, scrambling to his feet from the half-doze he’d drifted into, his face flushed bright-red as he scurries out the door with a muttered apology, and ignoring the woman’s gentle _are you okay?_ , as he goes. It’s even colder when he gets back outside; the sun had set while he’d been drifting, and had taken another several degrees of the temperature with it. Nolan jams his clenched fists back into his pockets, and puts his head down against the wind, and walks.

Probably he should go home—there are a handful of half-hearted texts on his phone from his parents wondering where he is—but he just...can’t bring his feet to turn that direction. Instead he keeps his eyes glued to the sidewalk, and does his best to fill his brain with nothing but the too-careful way he places his feet, one foot in front of the other, along the concrete in front of himself.

The meditative nature of it actually manages to work, apparently, because he nearly suffers a heart attack when someone says, “What the hell are you doing?,” from disturbingly close by.

It takes Nolan a few panting seconds with his hands braced on his knees to recover enough to turn his head, and finally look at who’d spoken. He blinks after he spots them, his brow furrowing in confusion and his mouth dropping open in his surprise. Framed in the rolled-down window of the passenger side door of his massive truck, Theo Raeken raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

“Um,” Nolan says, intelligently.

Theo rolls his eyes. “It’s Nolan, right?” He says over the low, bass rumble of the engine, though it’s clear he’s not actually _asking_. He’s got one wrist resting on the steering wheel; there’s a thick leather bracelet wrapped around it, and Nolan finds himself staring at the hints of the unusual shapes he can _just_ see carved into it in the dim light of the overhead streetlights. “ _Nolan_.”

Nolan jumps. “Yes,” he replies immediately; reflexively. “Yes, yeah. It’s—it’s Nolan.”

“Uh huh,” Theo agrees, his eyes now roving over Nolan’s face. “Great, good job. Now how about answering my first question—what the hell are you doing?”

Nolan glances around at the empty streets. “Um. Walking?” He says, and more than half to himself; god, what _is_ he doing?

Theo’s other eyebrow rises to join the first. “In the middle of Beacon Hills’ all-but-abandoned warehouse district, in,” he stops, and deliberately glances at the clock on his truck’s dash, “the middle of the night?”

Nolan feels his temper flare, unexpected and fierce in his chest. “What’s it to you?” He snaps, his hands jerking free of his pockets—the scrape of his frigid skin painful against his jeans—as his arms cross over his chest.

His outburst of temper seems to have the opposite effect on Theo that it should; Theo grins, wide and amused, and looks briefly away out through the windshield before looking back. “You do realize Monroe and her merry band of murderers are still out there, don’t you?”

 _Oh_ , Nolan thinks, and can all but _feel_ the color draining out of his face.

“And guess,” Theo continues, tinder-dry, “which true alpha would feel obligated to come after you if Monroe _did_ take advantage of you wandering around like a giant bullseye-on-legs?”

“Oh,” Nolan says, squinting at him. “Oh, I didn’t—so you are part of Scott’s pack, now.”

Theo’s expression spasms, something chasing itself there-and-gone across his face. But it’s too fast for Nolan to catch—his mind still feels sluggish, and slow, with cold and surprise and the creeping, growing _malaise_ he’d felt staring out at the coffee shop parking lot—and Theo’s face settles back into its seemingly default, slightly sharp smirk.

“Hardly,” he denies, and even manages to _sound_ dry and unbothered. Nolan doesn’t know where the certainty in his chest comes from that Theo—isn’t. As Nolan’s frowning thoughtfully at him, Theo raises his braceleted wrist and twists it around, clearly demonstratively, though Nolan has no idea what he’s trying to demonstrate. “But I’m pretty sure I’d be dragged into helping anyway.”

He drops his wrist back down to the steering wheel. Nolan just keeps staring. As the silence drags, the sharp smirk on Theo’s face starts to fade, all that sharpness migrating up to his eyes instead as they narrow. Nolan feels his shoulders start to hunch in, uncomfortable under the scrutiny; uncomfortable as Theo’s nostrils flare wide, and Nolan realizes with a jolt: _he’s scenting me_.

“Nolan,” Theo finally says, and says _gently_ , of all things. “C’mon, get in the car. I’ll give you a ride home.”

“No,” Nolan denies immediately, and even before it’s fully sunk in that _Theo Raeken_ , of all people, is offering him a ride. “No,” Nolan repeats, more shakily. “I can’t—I can’t go home.”

Theo stares at him, his sharp eyes studying, studying, studying. “Okay,” he finally agrees. “But you can’t stay here.”

 _Why not?_ Nolan finds himself thinking, his mental voice small and petulant, but. He shivers—he’s _been_ shivering, he suddenly realizes, his muscles starting to lock up from the force of it—and glances around. “Right,” he acknowledges. “Right, no, I. I can’t.”

“Nolan,” Theo repeats, still so _gentle_. “Get in.”

“But—” Nolan starts to protest.

“You don’t have to go home,” Theo cuts him off. He makes a big show of sighing, the fingers of the hand of his braceleted wrist tap-tap-tapping on the dash in front of his steering wheel, but it _is_ a show; Nolan knows it, somehow. “If it keeps me from having to traipse along after Scott to rescue your dumb ass later, you can come hang out at my place for a bit.”

Nolan doesn’t know what to say, or do. “I. I don’t—”

“Nolan,” Theo repeats, one last time.

Nolan gets in the car.

_**Theo** _

Nolan passes out on the former-McCall-house couch in Theo’s living room almost immediately after he sits down, so Theo throws a former-McCall-house blanket over him, and winds up all but forgetting about him.

Or trying to, anyway. It’s weird having a second heartbeat in the apartment after the last few weeks of silence, and Theo keeps jolting—keeps thinking _there’s someone here_ with these sickening spikes of panic—before he remembers. Combined with the slowly-pervading smell of the former McCall house furniture, spreading out and seeping in to every nook and cranny of the apartment, it settles something that’d been slouching restlessly in his chest, the space between his ribs feeling like it’s slowly expanding back out to being large enough for his lungs.

He still doesn’t go near the bed, though.

He’s leaned against the island in the kitchen with his tablet and a cup of coffee the next morning, Nolan still sound asleep in the next room, when he hears a key slide quietly _clunk-clunk-clunk_ into the lock of his front door. He frowns for half a beat but the heartbeat just behind the door is immediately recognizable, and by the time Liam finishes unlocking the door and stepping inside, Theo’s expression has already gone longsuffering and dry.

“I confiscated the key you had to my place,” Theo calls, more to the universe at large than to Liam specifically.

Theo can just see Liam through the doorway as he shrugs and rolls the door back shut behind himself. “Derek gave me another one.”

By that he one-hundred percent means that Stiles _stole_ him another one out of the complex’s main office, but: to-may-to, to-mah-to. Theo snorts quietly to himself and looks back down at his tablet, but in doing so catches sight of the time in the corner of the screen.

“You,” he starts to say as he steps out of the kitchen and into the main body of the apartment, “have school. What are you—”

He cuts himself off abruptly, blinking in surprise as he stares at Liam staring at Nolan—who’d apparently startled awake at Liam’s and Theo’s less-than-quiet exchange, and who’s now huddled back into the couch cushions and staring wide-eyed, in turn, at Liam—and watching as gold starts to fleck Liam’s irises. Liam’s upper lip starts to pull up, too, the shape of his teeth underneath too sharp to be fully human, and Theo finds himself nearly too taken aback—still too wrapped up in the McCall pack scent slowly replacing the stale air of his formerly empty apartment, and the way Nolan’s heartbeat had spent the night echoing through it—to say anything.

Still, he recognizes the sudden burn to Liam’s scent in his nose.

“ _Liam_ ,” he hisses, his eyes flicking reflexively down to check the tips of Liam’s fingers. They’re still blunt, but the color of them against the pale flesh of his skin is darker than it should be.

Liam jerks bodily, and then looks wildly around at Theo. “What is _he_ doing here?”

Theo stares at him. “He was wandering around Beacon Hills’ warehouse district alone last night. I figured there was no need to let him hand himself to Monroe on a silver platter.” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Nolan wince, his fingers going white-knuckled around the blanket that he’s still huddled under.

“So you brought him _here?_ ” Liam demands, his irises now fully gold.

“Yes, I brought him _here_ ,” Theo replies, now officially annoyed. “What the hell else was I supposed to do with him? He wouldn’t go home.”

Theo regrets saying it nearly the second it’s out of his mouth; Nolan flushes bright red, and jerks his gaze away from where his eyes had been pin-balling back and forth between the two of them, and to the ground. Flinching, Theo drags his attention away from him and back towards Liam just as Liam is opening his mouth, no doubt to keep arguing.

“ _Liam_ ,” Theo interrupts, before he can. “Forget Nolan. Why are _you_ here?”

It’s obvious from the look on his face that Liam doesn’t want to drop it, but whatever he _originally_ came here to say is clearly more important. He shuts his mouth, and works his jaw as he side-eyes Nolan, and then he exhales out, all in a rough rush, and resettles his shoulders as he turns deliberately to Theo, putting his back to Nolan still struck dumb behind him.

“There’s been another one,” he explains tightly.

Theo feels his brow furrow, and he starts to say, “Another…?,” confused and more than a little irritated by Liam’s caginess, and then he gets it. His expression slackens with surprise and disquiet, his irritation draining away. “The Sheriff’s alert?”

Liam darts a glance at Nolan, clearly debating. But he turns back the next second. “Yeah. Report filed early this morning in another jurisdiction—body found in the woods.” Liam stops, his jaw clenching. “Animal attack.”

Theo feels his own jaw tighten in turn. “And the victim was…?”

“Derek and Parrish are already on their way to confirm, but,” he exhales out a harsh burst of air, “Derek’s pretty sure he recognized the name from one of the other California packs.”

“Shit,” Theo breathes, and covers his mouth with his hands as his mind kicks into high gear. But then something occurs to him, and he frowns. “Wait. Why are _you_ telling me this?”

Liam’s nonexistent poker-face betrays him again; Theo feels his own expression go longsuffering.

“Liam,” he complains, exasperated, but Liam is already talking over him.

“Scott and everyone are being _dumb_ ,” he says, over-loud and stubborn, “This is _clearly_ more important, and—”

“Do _not_ ,” Theo interrupts, “keep dragging me into this. _Go to school_. If Scott and the others need your help, they’ll—”

“Weaverville isn’t even that far away!” Liam all but shouts over him. “I could—”

But then he cuts himself off, his head whipping around as he looks sharply at Nolan. Theo would be concerned, except he’d already done the same thing.

“That name means something to you,” Theo realizes slowly, his eyes on Nolan’s face as Nolan’s skin goes the approximate color of curdled milk. He can still hear Nolan’s heartbeat pounding away at his ears, still rabbit-fast after its initial spike.

Its initial spike at _Weaverville_.

Nolan thinks about lying; Theo can see the thought cross his face clear as day. But then he darts a nervous glance at Liam, and swallows, and says, “It’s just, um. It’s just—Gerard used to mention Weaverville, sometimes,” so low and so quiet that Theo reflexively sharpens his hearing to catch it.

“Mention it how?” Liam snaps.

Nolan flinches, and Theo barely resists the urge to snap _Liam_ in turn as Nolan nevertheless rallies in the face of Liam’s clear hostility to answer, “I think—I think he had a warehouse or something there. He’d talk about it with Monroe.”

Theo glances at Liam just as Liam glances at him.

“I’m going with you,” Liam says, low and burring and almost a threat, the way he says it.

“Fine,” Theo snaps. “But you’re driving yourself so that when Lydia’s mom calls to yell at all of us for you not being in class, you can drive yourself to school.”

_**Nolan** _

Nolan has four neat half-moons carved into the flesh of each of his palms.

It’s the only thing he can really think about as Theo and Liam continue to argue with each other all the way down to Theo’s truck and Liam’s SUV, Nolan trailing along after them in a pair of Theo’s borrowed sweats and one of his long-sleeved thermals, the edges of the sleeves worn and frayed and the whole thing sitting slightly off-center on Nolan’s shoulders, the breadth of it stretched out by Theo’s comparative bulk. Liam keeps glancing back and glaring at him, which Nolan pretends not to see, his eyes on his hands as he stumbles along behind them with his palms held up so that he can stare down at them.

At the four neat half-moons carved into them.

 _It must have happened when I was walking yesterday_ , he thinks, overly-focused and overly-deliberate so that he doesn’t have to think about where they’re going. So that he doesn’t have to think about Jiang in the cell and the way his eyes had gone wide with shock and something else— _betrayal_ , his mind whispers; it’d been betrayal—when Nolan had pulled out the vial of wolfsbane, _she’ll kill me if I don’t_ echoing and echoing between them. He thinks it so that he doesn’t have to think of that sheriff’s deputy who’d hung himself from fear, Nolan struck dumb with the handcuff around his wrist and watching in silent, baffled confusion, _he can’t actually be—_ right up until the man had kicked out the chair from beneath himself.

He squeezes his eyes shut, and doesn’t think about Monroe outside the station with her—with her _merry band of murderers_ , and when he opens them back up, Theo’s head is turned just slightly sideways in the driver’s seat of his truck, watching him.

Nolan jerks his eyes away, up and out of the window beside himself.

The sheriff’s station is already bustling with activity when they get there, no matter the relatively early hour, and Nolan’s expecting Theo and Liam to stop at the desk, maybe, to have to explain to the deputy on duty who they are and where they’re going, but Theo just flicks the woman a wave and Liam just says an absent _hey, Gonzalez_ as they walk right past.

It’s _Nolan_ who gets the questions.

 _What is_ he _doing here?_ Nolan hears, muttered and low but not low enough, several of the deputies all around the station—several of the deputies that he _recognizes_ —all with their eyes narrow on his face, their mouths in tight lines. Nolan nearly stumbles as he accidentally catches the eyes of one deputy, _he was my partner_ hissed at the Sheriff as the Sheriff had been escorting Nolan out that one horrible night, and it’s only Theo’s hand suddenly on his arm that keeps him upright.

“C’mon,” Theo murmurs, and pulls Nolan in front of himself as he continues to walk. It puts Nolan firmly in between Liam and Theo, and it doesn’t exactly _stop_ the angry rumble of voices, or hot glares, but it at least lets Nolan glue his eyes to Liam’s heels in front of himself and focus on the solid wall of _presence_ that Theo somehow gives off behind himself as they weave their way deeper into the station.

The Sheriff and Chris Argent and Scott are already in the Sheriff’s office when they get there, clustered around the Sheriff’s desk. Scott glances up at them as they file inside and smiles, absently, and then almost immediately double-takes with his expression melting into one of almost comical dismay.

“Liam!” He complains, and then he looks over Liam’s shoulder—and past Nolan, though Nolan doesn’t think his unintentional dismissal is malicious—and adds, “Theo, we _talked about_ —”

“I _told him_ —” Theo starts to argue, just as Liam shrills, “You can’t seriously—!”

“So my father would mention Weaverville,” Argent says serenely, and smoothly right over the top of Scott and Liam and Theo continuing to squabble.

Nolan swallows, and darts a glance at Theo to find him already looking back, his expression unreadable. Jerking his gaze away, and back to Argent, Nolan brings one hand up to clasp around his opposite elbow and stammers, “Y-yeah. Some—sometimes.”

Argent studies him for a few seconds, the weight of his attention settling like a physical press on Nolan’s shoulders. Off to the side Scott and Liam are still muttering furiously to each other, but Theo—even though he’s still stood almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Liam—had apparently given up on the argument, and refocused on Nolan and Argent. Nolan curls inward a little more around the vulnerable parts of himself.

“Hmm,” Argent finally hums. “You remember what he’d say?”

“No,” Nolan confesses, and so quietly that he can barely hear himself. He clears his throat, and tries again. “No, not—not really,” he repeats, more loudly. “He wasn’t— _they_ weren’t…weren’t talking _to_ me.”

Nolan can see the confusion on Argent’s—and Theo’s and the Sheriff’s and Scott’s and Liam’s—faces. He flinches.

“They were talking to _each other_ ,” he tries to explain. “Gerard and Monroe, or—or Rossler, or Richmond and Preston and the others. They just didn’t—they didn’t…”

“Care if you overheard,” Argent fills in, and shares glances with the Sheriff and the others as he does.

“Or they didn’t notice that I was around,” Nolan jokes weakly, and then winces, because that hadn’t—actually been much of a joke.

A stilted silence falls in the office, Argent and the Sheriff with carefully thoughtful, carefully _neutral_ expressions, and Scott grimacing sympathetically. Beside him Liam looks unmoved—or even a little viciously _pleased_ , though he doesn’t say anything—and Theo just continues to study him, steady and even and with his eyes just slightly narrowed. Nolan finds it slightly easier to look at him than at any of the others—Theo through the window of his truck last night saying _okay_ after Nolan confessed that he couldn’t go home—so Nolan glances at him, and then down at the floor, and then helplessly back at him.

“Well,” the Sheriff finally says, with that same gentle tone that Theo had used last night, too, and for a brief, blinding moment Nolan _hates_ everything about the situation, including himself, “you recognized the name when Liam mentioned it, so I bet you know more than you think you do.”

Nolan’s throat is too tight to respond, so instead he just nods, jerky and stiff. The Sheriff sighs.

“Grab a seat, kid. We’re going to be here for a while,” he instructs, and then he glances down at the phone on his desk as it starts to shrill.

Nolan can see his eyes flick over the screen—no doubt looking at the Caller-ID—and then his expression goes a mixture of amused and desert-dry. He pokes the speakerphone button.

“Principal Martin,” he says, and makes direct, smirking eye contact with Liam as he does it. “How can we help you this fine Monday morning?”

_**Theo** _

A little over two hours into Argent’s and the Sheriff’s careful interrogation of Nolan, Scott offers to show Nolan where the bathrooms are, Nolan getting up and following after him with another one of those meek, jerky nods. Theo wonders if Nolan realizes that Scott’s motives are practical, not altruistic; that Scott’s presence at his side as they weave their way through the station is an _escort_ , not a friendly guide.

Theo watches the unfriendly eyes following Nolan’s back, and thinks, somehow, that Nolan probably does.

“Well,” the Sheriff says, and blows out a long, slow breath. “As hard as he’s clearly trying, none of that tells us anything about why werewolves are suddenly killing other werewolves, or what Monroe might have to do with it.”

“Definitely,” Argent murmurs, a quiet correction, and flicks his eyes up to meet the Sheriff’s. “Definitely has to do with.”

The Sheriff’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t disagree. Argent sighs, and rolls his shoulders back as he straightens up in the chair he’d sat in, putting himself close but not _too_ close to Nolan; making himself the same height as Nolan, and then just a bit shorter as he’d slouched, easy and relaxed with his elbows braced wide on his knees, no matter the uncomfortable nature of the conversation, and the probing quality to his questions.

“He’s repressed as many of the memories as he can,” Argent concludes, “and apparently done an impressive job of it.”

“The Sheriff was right, though,” Theo puts in from his place by the back wall, sat on the old, well-worn couch just under the windows. “He clearly knows more than he thinks he does. He’s just going to need triggers, like this morning.”

Argent gives him an evaluating look for a few long, slow seconds, and then he smirks. “I forgot you’re something of our local memory loss recovery expert.”

Theo’s jaw tightens. His fingers spasm reflexively on his thighs, and for a moment he doesn’t feel the rough weave of his jeans underneath his fingertips, but the dry, parchment-paper feel of the beat-up old cover of Valack’s novel; the slick, still slightly-warm slide of the photocopied pages that Scott had handed him, his guileless face wide open as he’d asked for Theo’s help that day in the locker room, back before any of the McCall pack had known who the Doctors were, or what was coming for them. _The book worked_ , Theo remembers saying later that same day, the taste of victory triumphant on his tongue as he’d rushed his way into the operating theater and had told the Doctors, _The book worked, and now they’re going to see Valack_.

Argent keeps smirking levelly at him, and then he glances away, towards the Sheriff, as the Sheriff says, “Well, McCall already has—” He stops, and clarifies, “McCall _senior_ already has people combing through Weaverville’s various records, trying to identify which building, if there is one, might be Monroe’s.” He nods towards Theo. “Once we find and clear it, you can take Nolan there, see if you can trigger something else.”

Theo stares at him. “ _I_ can take him?” He asks incredulously.

“He’s comfortable with you, clearly,” Argent replies absently as he pushes himself to his feet, and circles around the edge of the Sheriff’s desk to once more focus on a sheaf of documents there. “Or he’s more comfortable with you than he is with any of us, anyway.”

“I met him _yesterday_ , for all practical purposes,” Theo shoots back. “Have _Scott_ take him. Or, hell, _Liam_. He’s Nolan’s co-captain, or whatever.”

Argent looks up at him. “Do you actually think that’s a good idea?”

Theo meets his eyes, but just barely. “No,” he admits shortly.

“So you’ll take him,” Argent concludes. He must catch the sour look on Theo’s face because he adds, “You’re the one who chose to pick him up last night.”

“Would you have preferred I had just left him there to be captured by Monroe?” Theo asks tartly.

“No,” Argent replies. “I think you did exactly the right thing.” He smirks again. “Welcome to the consequences of being one of the good guys.”

“You’re really selling the concept,” Theo snarks back.

Argent keeps right on smirking, close-mouthed and sly, but he doesn’t reply; Scott and Nolan step back into the office. Theo can see the resolution on his face and the Sheriff’s—their decision made, their next steps identified, practical and pragmatic to the end—as they refocus on Nolan, whose fingers tangle in the too-long sleeves of the shirt Theo had given him to borrow and whose shoulders start to hunch in as he trails Scott back inside.

“Alright, Nolan,” the Sheriff says gently as Nolan comes to stand by his previous chair and hovers there instead of sitting in it. “You’ve been a big help. That’s all we need for now, we’ll—”

“No,” Nolan suddenly denies, so fast and so loud and so unexpected that the Sheriff immediately cuts off, and Theo and everyone else in the room jump. “No, I,” he stammers, visibly quailing under the sudden attention. But he swallows, loud enough that Theo can hear his throat click and is willing to bet the humans in the room can, too, and rallies enough to say, “I can remember more. Please, just.” He cuts himself off, and then quietly repeats, “I can remember more.”

The Sheriff studies him for a few long seconds, and then looks over at Argent. Argent looks back for an equally-long stretch of seconds, and then shrugs.

“Okay,” the Sheriff agrees, finally. Theo doesn’t think he’s imagining the reluctance is his voice. “Sit back down, then, kid.”

But Nolan’s best intentions aside, he really _can’t_ remember much more; he clearly had, as Argent had concluded, successfully repressed too many of the memories. Argent and the Sheriff give it another hour and then call it, their eyes not on Nolan but on Scott and Theo as they react instinctually to Nolan’s mounting distress, Theo’s shoulders tightening up without his say-so and Scott’s expression twisting further and further as he clearly resists intervening.

Nolan tries to protest again, but this time Argent and the Sheriff hold firm. “You’ll get another chance, Nolan,” the Sheriff assures him gently. “Once we find the warehouse, you can help us search it, okay? See if something new doesn’t shake loose.”

“Okay,” Nolan agrees quietly, but Theo doesn’t have to be a supernatural with supernatural senses to catch the disappointment and self-reproach practically bleeding from his pores.

The Sheriff’s expression is soft as he watches Nolan’s downturned face. Finally he swallows a sigh, and looks up at Theo. “Can you get him back to the school? He should be able to make the second half of the day, at least.”

“Yeah,” Theo replies automatically, and with a complete lack of irritation in his chest where he would have fully expected there to be. “Yeah, sure,” he agrees, and only afterwards does he look up at Argent to find Argent already looking back.

He doesn’t say anything, or smirk again, but Theo still hears _welcome to the consequences of being one of the good guys_ echoing around his head as he’s leading Nolan out of the office.

It bothers him less than it probably should.

_**Nolan** _

The McCall pack finds Monroe’s Weaverville warehouse a few days after Nolan’s trip to the station—a few days after Gabe’s funeral, Nolan realizes sometimes with a jolt—but beyond a quick _FYI_ text message from an unknown number that turns out to be Theo’s, no one says anything to him or comes to him pick him up to search it until that weekend.

“Argent and the Sheriff and Scott aren’t stupid enough to risk Natalie Martin’s wrath by pulling you out of school,” Theo answers simply when Nolan asks him about it after Theo comes to get him, Theo once more slouched back in the driver’s seat of his truck with his braceleted left wrist resting easy on the steering wheel, and a pair of sunglasses over his eyes to protect against the early morning sun’s glare.

Nolan glances at him from the passenger seat, and then catches himself looking and jerks his gaze almost immediately back down, his cheeks heating. But the too-quick movement jars his right shoulder, and he has to bite back a pained sound as he brings his opposite hand up to brace against it, trying to hold it steady as it throbs.

He’s caught up enough in gritting his teeth against the pain that he jumps when Theo suddenly says, “Here, give me your hand.”

Nolan turns to stare at Theo and his out-stretched hand—and accidentally jars his shoulder again as he does—in confusion. “What, why?”

Theo just smirks, close-mouthed but not unkindly. He wiggles the fingers of his held-out hand. “C’mon, I’ll show you a trick.”

Still confused, but more than a little intrigued, Nolan slowly reaches out his left arm, and places it in the palm of Theo’s offered hand. Theo—his attention divided easily between the road in front of him and Nolan beside him—closes his fingers carefully around Nolan’s forearm, and then slowly lets his eyes drift shut as—as black veins suddenly appear underneath Nolan’s skin.

Nolan sucks in a harsh, startled breath and tries to pull away, but Theo just follows him, his fingers forming a loose cage around Nolan’s arm. When Nolan darts a terrified look up at him, Theo’s eyes are back open, and he’s watching Nolan carefully.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs quietly; soothingly. “See?”

He nods down at their joined arms. Swallowing, Nolan looks down, too, and then finds his attention caught as he stares in fascination at where the black veins that had risen under his skin branch inexorably towards Theo’s gently grasping fingers. As Nolan watches they seem to flow out of his own flesh and into Theo’s, and Nolan’s almost _too_ mesmerized by the sight to realize that—

That his shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore.

“Oh, that’s…” Nolan stutters, and flushes at the _wonder_ in his own voice. But he can’t seem to quash it, or stop himself from stammering, “That’s amazing. Can all werewolves…?”

He finally manages to clamp his teeth shut, but Theo answers anyway. He also releases Nolan’s arm and sits back as he shrugs. “I wouldn’t know,” he drawls laconically, and then explains, a little shortly, at Nolan’s furrowed-brow glance, “I’m not a werewolf.”

“Oh,” Nolan replies quietly. “Oh, right.” _Chimera_ , he thinks. He remembers Gerard explaining the term to Monroe, back at the Beacon Hills warehouse and after Monroe’s assault on the station, Monroe snapping _who the hell was that, the one with Scott?_

He jumps a little when Theo blows out a harsh breath, but Theo just adds, his tone softer, now, “It seems like most of the were-derived species can. Take pain, I mean.” Nolan looks up and over at him just in time to catch a shadow of something cross his face. “Not—not all of them, though.”

And then he seems to shake himself, and the brief glimpse of whatever-it-was disappears. He tips his chin towards Nolan’s shoulder.

“How’s it feel?”

Nolan gathers his scattered thoughts back into some kind of order, and forces himself to really consider the question. “Good,” he says, after a few seconds. “It doesn’t—it doesn’t hurt anymore. Thank you,” he adds, belatedly.

Theo just shrugs off Nolan’s attempted gratitude. A half-minute or so of silence passes as Theo refocuses on the road and Nolan forcibly keeps his attention focused in his lap, but then Theo taps the fingers of his left hand—his braceleted wrist still resting on the steering wheel—against the dash a few drum-beat times, and sighs.

“He didn’t do it on purpose, you know,” he says. Nolan feels his brow furrow, and Theo must either see or sense his confusion because he clarifies, “Liam. He didn’t miss the block during the game last night on purpose. He thought Anderson had you covered.”

“Oh,” Nolan says. He winces; christ, is he really that transparent? He swallows, and tries to make it into a joke. “I just thought maybe he was still mad at me.”

His tone’s off, the attempted humor scratchy and too-forced, but Theo doesn’t seem to notice; he leans forward to check his left blindspot as he changes lanes—out from behind an irritatingly slow-moving hybrid—as he absently replies, “For kicking his ass that one time? Yeah, he probably is.”

Nolan frowns. “No, I meant for—” He cuts himself off, abruptly, only belatedly realizing the potential impolitic nature of what he’d been about to say, but when he glances nervously over at Theo, Theo is watching him expectantly. Biting his lip, Nolan forces himself to shrug and conclude, “For staying over at your place, earlier this week. He seemed pretty…” Nolan trails off again, and he has to jerk his attention away from Theo’s before he can conclude, “He seemed pretty unhappy to find me there.”

Theo doesn’t respond right away. When Nolan finally manages to drag his eyes back up to Theo’s face, Theo is staring, narrow-eyed, right at him, the road ignored for the moment. Nolan freezes, his throat going tight.

His reaction seems to snap Theo out of it. He blinks several times and gives his head a visible little shake, and turns back to the road. “Liam just doesn’t like surprises,” he finally replies, his tone breezy and dismissive.

But he brings his previously-lounging wrist down, and wraps both it and his other hand around the steering wheel even as he says it, the skin around his knuckles going white.

“Right,” Nolan agrees, staring at them. “Right, of course.”

_**Theo** _

“Oh,” Nolan stammers when they finally arrive at the warehouse, his eyes on the smattering of cruisers—both _Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department_ and _Trinity County Sheriff’s Department_ emblazoned along their various sides—parked around the lot. “Oh, I didn’t know that anyone else—”

He cuts himself off abruptly enough that Theo hears his teeth click together. Purposefully ignoring the awkwardness, Theo shrugs and throws his truck into park. “They’re still working on processing it.”

The lie slips easily off his tongue. Yesterday in the Sheriff’s office when Argent and Scott and the Sheriff had been finalizing the plan, Argent had stared down at the spread of surveillance photos fanned out across the Sheriff’s desk and had said _there’s no way Monroe doesn’t still have people in Weaverville_. The others had all nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and it _was_ , of course it was, but:

 _That could be an opportunity—_ , Theo had started to point out slowly, but that had been as far as he’d gotten before Scott and the Sheriff and even Argent had immediately shut him down. Theo had argued for a token few more seconds—it _could have been_ an opportunity, after all—but when he’d finally relented with a huffed _fine, whatever_ , and slumped back in his chair, it’d been _relief_ that had tightened his throat, not irritation; he hadn’t exactly _wanted_ to turn himself and Nolan into bait, but: it’d needed to be said, and it was possible that it’d had to be Theo who’d had to say it.

Still, he sneaks a glance at Nolan as Nolan is climbing down from his truck.

“Hey,” Parrish greets as Theo and Nolan walk up. His stance is easy but even still the glare of the morning sun is picking out molten orange flecks in his eyes. “You made good time, seems like.”

“Weaverville’s not exactly California’s hottest destination,” Theo throws back, and Parrish smirks. He tips his head towards the doors.

“We’ve secured the building, but still: watch your step. There’s some,” Parrish’s jaw tightens, his amusement falling away, “pretty nasty stuff in there.”

Behind Theo, Nolan flinches. Parrish catches it and then grimaces at Theo, who grimaces right back.

“C’mon,” Theo says, and reaches back to put a guiding hand on Nolan’s upper arm.

The inside of the warehouse is a mess, which Theo already knew from the photos that the Sheriff’s deputies had taken earlier in the week, but Nolan stares wide-eyed around as they step through the doors. _Monroe figured out we were coming somehow,_ the Sheriff had concluded as his eyes had roved over the chaotic sprawl of papers and equipment that had been left behind documented by the pictures, _Her and her people must have left in a hurry_.

There are clusters of deputies here and there in the various rooms, most of them with easy, hip-cocked stances and their gloves held loosely in—rather than _on_ —their hands. And as much as they’re all talking back and forth with one another, Theo knows—just from the cadence of their voices, his supernatural hearing unnecessary—that it’s all little more than _gossip_ , every now and then one or the other breaking out in peals of laughter, their fingerprinting kits and evidence bags and other equipment left practically untouched; props.

Still, Nolan seems to buy it.

He buys it enough, in fact, that he winds up hovering close enough to Theo’s side to nearly be tripping them both. Theo swallows back his initial urge to snap at him and instead simply focuses on watching his own feet, snaking them free of Nolan’s without comment and smoothly moving his shoulders, and arms, out of the way every time Nolan stumbles, his attention caught, or abruptly speeds up as he realizes that he’d started to lag behind Theo. Theo can tell when he sees a Beacon Hills deputy he recognizes—or who recognizes _him_ —because his heartbeat goes wild, and after a while, as they weave their way deeper into the building, Theo starts shifting to put himself in between the deputies’ eyelines and Nolan; it doesn’t help much, but Theo hears the soft _snick_ as Nolan’s hands unclench enough that his nails—even as short, and as human as they are—slide free of the flesh of his palms.

They finally make it to the back offices, tucked back in the back of the building. One of them had clearly been used as an armory—the whole room still reeks overwhelmingly of gun oil and the sharp acrid taste of gunpowder—but the other had been Monroe’s headquarters of sorts, Argent and Scott and the Sheriff—and Theo, for that matter—were pretty certain.

“Start here, okay?” Theo tells Nolan as they hover in the doorway.

Nolan swallows; Theo hears his throat click. “What am I—what am I looking for?”

“Anything,” Theo answers, his voice kept deliberately easy. “Everything. If you do have other memories to trigger, it’ll be like when you heard Weaverville. Don’t try to force it. Trust,” Theo starts to say, and then stops, and then forces himself to start again like he hadn’t hesitated at all, “Trust yourself.”

Nolan darts him an uncertain, furrowed-brow look, his mouth dropped just slightly open. He’s nervous enough that the scent of it is raising the hair on the back of Theo’s neck, his instincts winching tighter and tighter no matter how much he reminds himself of the presence of the other deputies—and the _hellhound_ , for christ’s sake, Parrish still outside standing guard—around. Forcibly shoving them down, Theo pastes on what feels like a patently unconvincing smile and shoves off the door, leading the way into the room.

He spends the first ten minutes or so idly sorting through the various documents and books that Monroe and her people had left behind when they’d abandoned the warehouse, but it’s a cover, a thinly-veiled excuse for him to hover around in Nolan’s eyesight; he’d already seen all of the material in the crime scene photos the Sheriff’s deputies had taken. But after a while, as Nolan starts to relax—as he starts to get deeper and deeper into his own exploration of the detritus Monroe and her people hadn’t had time to take—Theo lets himself wander further and further away, back out of the room, his fingers absently trailing along tables and counters and half-closed cabinets, his mind starting to wander, too.

It’s probably why it takes him so long to realize that he isn’t imagining the scent.

 _What the hell_ , he thinks, and stops abruptly just outside Monroe’s former office, his fingers still resting lightly on the wall. Closing his eyes, he takes a deep, careful breath, and lets his eyes slide slowly back open as he exhales it just as slowly back out. _No_ , he thinks. _Can’t be_ , he tells himself. But he starts walking again, this time with purpose.

There’s a section of the warehouse separated off from the rest of it by thick plastic sheeting; Theo had stared at the grimy hang of them in the crime scene photos and had tried, and failed, not to be reminded of the Doctors’ operating theaters. Now he pushes through them, gritting his teeth and setting his shoulders against the sight of the rolling, stainless steel operating chair just beyond, and the equally-stark gleam of the exam table just beyond _that_. In the photos both had seemed almost eerily lit, the flash of the photographers’ cameras turning them into horror movie set pieces, but up close and under the harsh fluorescent lights of the warehouse they seem almost antiseptically, too-starkly clean. Theo honestly can’t decide which is worse.

He hovers where he is for just a moment longer, one arm raised to keep the slick sheeting at bay, and then he exhales out a harsh noise and forces himself forward. The sheets fall back into place behind him with a too-quiet, barely-there rustle.

Whatever Monroe and her people had been using the surgical-like setup for, it’d apparently been important enough that they’d stripped it almost bare when they’d fled. The notebooks that are left behind are blank, the tops of them left jagged from ripped-out pages, and the rest of the items are equally innocuous, and equally useless; half-empty pens, a stainless steel surgical tray, a lighter. Theo stares in confusion for a few seconds at a section of the exam table that seems to be covered in a fine layer of ash, and then he drags his gaze away, and continues looking around. _It_ can’t _be_ , he tells himself again, and he almost, _almost_ manages to believe it, until he crouches down to check under the table, and spots something gleaming dully against the floor against the wall.

Whatever-it-is had obviously slipped through the crack between the table and the wall; Monroe and her people hadn’t found it, or hadn’t realized it’d been lost, when they’d done their best to clear the rest of the room out. Frowning, Theo wraps one hand around the table edge above him as a brace and leans forward until he can fish the item out with the fingers of his other hand, and pull it back out into the light.

And then he nearly drops it right back down when he realizes what he’s holding.

 _No_ , he thinks, just that single, horrified denial. _No. No, no, no_. But even if he didn’t recognize exactly what he’s looking at, he’d recognize its _scent_ ; acrid and electric and always, _always_ tangled up in Theo’s memory with the smell of Josh’s cheap cologne.

Theo gags, helplessly, his fist closing automatically around Josh’s fang to keep hold of it as his body dry-heaves.

 _You never did figure out what happened to Josh’s and Tracy’s bodies_ , he reminds himself, more than a little hysterically, and has to press the back of his free hand against his lips as his mouth fills with bile. “Jesus christ,” he breathes shakily, because never in his wildest imaginings would it have _occurred_ to him…

He thinks, for a brief, _blinding_ moment of Gerard’s ravaged corpse, and is fiercely glad. But:

“Theo?”

Theo jerks _hard_ at the sound of his name, and then hisses as he instinctually closes his hand hard enough around the fang held in his fingers to pierce his skin. Gritting his teeth, Theo forces his hand to relax just enough that Josh’s fang isn’t stabbing him anymore, but he keeps his fingers closed to hide it—and the blood, which he can feel pooling wetly in his palm—as he pivots around on his still-crouched legs to look at Nolan.

“Nolan,” Theo says stupidly. “Hey, sorry.”

Nolan just stays hovering uncertainly just inside the sheeting, one arm upraised to keep them away from his face. “Oh,” he says, his eyes on—on Theo’s _closed fist_. “Did you find something?”

“No,” Theo answers automatically, and straightens up. As he stands he makes like he’s brushing dirt off his palms, and uses the movement to tuck Josh’s fang carefully in his pocket. It also gives him the opportunity to wipe his bloody, now-healed palm on his black shirt. “Nothing important, anyway,” he continues, still in that same easy tone. “You?”

That works as a distraction, if nothing else: Nolan’s expression spasms with a mixture of shyness and pride, which gets trampled almost immediately by shame, as he raises his other arm—the one not still holding the plastic sheeting away—to show Theo a single sheet of half-burned paper.

“Yeah, I—I think so,” he stammers. “I recognize these.”

Theo frowns, and takes the few steps forward necessary to allow him to carefully take the paper. A chunk of it is gone, burned away and with the remaining edges crisp and blackened with soot, but a series of stark black symbols are still recognizable on the surviving section. Theo cocks his head, staring at them.

“Monroe used to draw them all the time,” Nolan explains. “Or—or symbols like them, anyway. But.” His voice had gotten stronger the longer he’d talked—gaining confidence, maybe, that same pride creeping back in—but at that _but_ it drops right back down again. “But I don’t know what they mean.”

He darts a glance up at Theo from underneath a ducked brow, clearly expecting disappointment, or reproach. But:

“I do,” Theo says. “I know what they mean.”

_**Nolan** _

Nolan spends the next week sketching the symbols in the margins of his notebooks, on sheets of blank printer paper that he steals from his parents’ home office; on the back of his calculus pop quiz, half the questions left answered.

 _It’s a spell_ , Theo had told the gathered McCall pack the afternoon after he and Nolan had gotten back from Weaverville, the lot of them squeezed into the exam room in Alan Deaton’s animal clinic with Deaton looking benignly irritated at their unannounced invasion. Nolan hadn’t known what to do, or where to stand—the McCall pack seeming to live and breathe and move as one unit—and so he’d hovered close to Theo, who’d made room for him without comment.

But then again: his doing so had shifted him closer to Liam.

“So if solving the previous part of the equation leaves us with an integral, that means that now we must…?” Ms. Keliher prompts from the front of the room, the squeak of her marker on the dry erase board pausing as she waits for a reply. “Anyone? Anyone.”

Nolan ducks his head farther down over his desk, and keeps scratching out spiky, poorly-shaped copies of the symbols he’d found on the paper in the warehouse; the symbols he remembered Monroe sketching, and sketching, and sketching.

 _So, what, Monroe’s a witch now?_ Stiles had snarked, and Derek had elbowed him not-exactly-gently in the ribs. The rest of the McCall pack had serenely ignored their byplay, and had almost as a unit looked expectantly at Theo, who’d shrugged, and looked at Deaton.

“Take the derivative, yes,” Ms. Keliher finally answers her own question, her exasperation clear in her voice. “Your enthusiasm for this subject warms my heart.”

Nolan can’t help but smile a little, amused, but he yanks it off his face a half-second later when he catches Amy Newhouse in the desk next to him sneaking him an uncertain look. He hunches over a little further, his eyes glued to the sheet of paper in front of him so he doesn’t have to look at the inch-long scar on Amy’s right hand; _everyone heals_ , Gabe had told students just like Amy, over and over, the scalpel held in his fingers gleaming as Nolan had looked away, and pretended he was somewhere, _anywhere_ else, _We just want to know how fast_ you _heal._

In the animal clinic that afternoon, Deaton had answered Stiles’ admittedly sarcastic question by saying, _There are ways for non-magic users to take advantage of spells_. Then he’d sighed, and said, _It’s significantly more difficult, of course. But not impossible_. Several of the McCall pack had given exaggerated groans of despair—Stiles had taken it a step further and essentially melted off his perch on one of the exam tables, but he might have done that specifically for the way it made Derek grab him under the arm and haul him back upright, Stiles’ answering grin blinding—and began peppering Deaton with questions.

But it’d been Argent who’d looked at Theo, and cut right through the chaos to ask, _so what does_ this spell _do?_

The bell shrilling startles Nolan badly enough that he scratches a thick black line across the symbols he’d been drawing. At the front of the classroom Ms. Keliher starts shouting out instructions about their homework assignment for that night over the cacophony of all the students packing up, but Nolan stays where he is, frowning down at his sketches. The line he’d accidentally drawn across several of them had changed the shape of them just enough…

One of the other students bumps into Nolan on their way through the aisle, breaking him out of his thoughts. Jumping, he glances around and sees the almost-empty classroom, and swears a little as he starts hurriedly gathering up his things, and shoving them into his backpack. He’s made it to his feet and through the rows of desks, and is almost out of the classroom door when Ms. Keliher suddenly calls, “Nolan, wait,” from behind him.

Nolan freezes, both of his hands rising to wrap tight and then tighter around the single backpack strap slung across his shoulder and chest. He only turns—haltingly, and with his head already ducked so that he’s staring fixedly at her shoes—when Ms. Keliher walks up to him.

“I wanted to ask,” she explains, and holds out a piece of paper, “about this.”

Grimacing and more than a little reluctantly, Nolan drags his eyes up, and looks. “Oh,” he says, when he catches sight of his pop quiz from yesterday. “Oh, I’m—I’m really sorry. I know I should have tried to answer more of the questions, but I just. I don’t really understand how the derivative—”

“No,” Ms. Keliher interrupts, her voice quiet but—but _firm_. “I meant this.”

She flips his quiz over, and reveals the spiky black symbols that Nolan had scrawled all over the back of it.

“Oh,” Nolan says, so quietly that it’s almost silent.

“What are these, Nolan?” Ms. Keliher asks, and Nolan can’t help but sneak a quick look up at her. She’s looking back, her mouth a tight line. “Is it…” She continues. “I know that at the beginning of the semester, you were involved in some—some—” She doesn’t seem to know how to complete that sentence, and abruptly she switches tracks and demands, “Do these have something to do with—?”

“No!” Nolan interrupts, horrified, so loud and so desperately that his voice cracks. Ms. Keliher startles backwards, her eyes going wide. Nolan flinches, but tries to _explain_. “It’s not—” He denies, and he’s being _too_ earnest, and _too_ forceful; he can see the uncertainty and the beginnings of—of _fear_ in Ms. Keliher’s face. “It’s nothing _like—_ ”

“Hey, there you are!” Someone calls, cutting him off.

Nolan’s jaw clamps shut automatically, his head jerking reflexively around to look at—at _Liam_ as Liam slithers his way through the half-open classroom doorway and _beams_ at him. Nolan stares.

“Oh, excellent,” Liam continues, and with only the barest hint of a wild look in his eye as he looks at the paper still held in Ms. Keliher’s hand, and clearly starts pulling bullshit right out of thin air. “You managed to find the symbols I needed, awesome.”

He punches Nolan lightly in the arm, an overly bro-y gesture that seems absurd in context, but actually seems to help sell his casual interruption; Ms. Keliher glances between the two of them, but the suspicion on her face starts to fade.

“Nolan found these for _you_ ,” she double-checks slowly. Liam nods easily, now standing practically shoulder-to-shoulder with Nolan. Ms. Keliher frowns. “For what?”

“College essay,” Liam answers after only a split-second of hesitation.

“College essay,” Ms. Keliher repeats, just the slightest bit incredulously.

“Yeah, you know,” Liam replies, voice breezy and his hands starting to move as he sketches random shapes through the air; he’d been spending time with Stiles lately, maybe. “It’s so hard to make your applications stand out these days, right? You’ve got to get creative.”

“Uh huh,” Ms. Keliher says after a moment, and then doesn’t say anything else.

But Liam doesn’t take the bait, and just keeps beaming at her, Nolan’s shoulder and arm getting warm from the sheer amount of _heat_ Liam manages to give off—Nolan had noticed the same thing about Theo every time Theo put his hand on Nolan’s arm, or shoulder, or that time the first night when Theo had thrown a blanket over Nolan on the couch, his fingers just skimming the back of Nolan’s skull as he’d walked away—and waits. As the silence drags it’s clear that Ms. Keliher isn’t fully satisfied, but Liam isn’t giving her any openings, and Nolan follows his lead and keeps his mouth shut.

“Alright,” Ms. Keliher finally sighs. “You two should get going, or you’re going to be late for next period.” Liam immediately and cheerfully agrees, and has already put a hand on Nolan’s shoulder to start shoving him towards the door when Ms. Keliher waves Nolan’s pop quiz in her hand pointedly. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Oh!” Liam exclaims, a brief spasm of panic crossing his face. “Right. Right, of course.” He lunges back just enough that he can snag the paper. “Wouldn’t want all Nolan’s hard work to go to waste.”

“Mhm,” Ms. Keliher hums noncommittally, and then raises a hand and flicks it in a clear _shoo_ gesture. “Class, boys.”

“Class,” Liam repeats firmly, and this time just grabs Nolan’s arm and forcefully drags him from the room, Nolan stumbling along after him.

But Liam doesn’t head to his next class, or release Nolan so that Nolan can go to his. Instead he keeps dragging Nolan right on along until they get to the little alcove tucked away between the gym and the crooked hallway leading to the main offices. Only when they’re pressed back inside of it does he let go of Nolan’s wrist, and instead uses both hands to lift Nolan’s quiz to his face so that he can frown thoughtfully down at the symbols Nolan had drawn.

“Thanks,” Nolan tells him quietly.

Liam flicks a hand dismissively. “So what are these really?” He asks, looking up from the symbols and waving the paper in his hand. It flaps loudly and he immediately stops, grimacing, and glances around.

Nolan frowns at him, confused. “They’re the symbols from Monroe’s warehouse.”

Liam rolls his eyes. “I know _that_ ,” he counters, exasperated. “I mean, why are you drawing them on the back of your assignments like some kind of paranoid conspiracy theorist?”

“Oh,” Nolan says. “Um.” He shrugs, suddenly embarrassed. “Theo said…he said he thought the spell we found was incomplete. Because some of it was burned?” He doesn’t mean to let the second part tip up into a question, but he also doesn’t know why he’s explaining this part to Liam; Liam was _there_ when Theo explained his theory at the animal clinic.

Luckily Liam doesn’t call him out on it. “Yeah,” he prompts. “And this is helping how?”

“I thought—I thought I could maybe remember the missing parts,” Nolan confesses, and then immediately flinches. His hands rise once more to wrap around his backpack strap. _It’s stupid_ , he tries to get himself to say, but his mouth won’t move, and so he just waits, preemptively wincing as he waits for Liam to say it instead.

But Liam just says, “Huh,” thoughtful and easy. Nolan darts a surprised look up at him to find his eyes flicking over the symbols, his head tilted curiously. “There are more symbols here than were on the original sheet you and Theo found,” he concludes, and then he glances up at Nolan as he double-checks, “Aren’t there?”

“Uh,” Nolan stammers. “Uh, yeah. A few more,” he hedges.

“Hmm,” Liam absently acknowledges, and looks back down at the symbols. He tilts his head back and forth a few more times, clearly thinking, and then all at once he straightens up, and starts briskly folding up Nolan’s quiz in his hands as he says, “You should show Theo. He’s been working on trying to figure out the spell.”

 _I know_ , Nolan thinks about saying, but doesn’t. “O-okay,” he says instead, but frowns in confusion as Liam continues carefully—too carefully, really—folding up the paper. “I mean, I can send him a picture…?” Nolan suggests, and starts to reach forward for his quiz.

“Nah,” Liam dismisses, and tucks the paper into his back pocket instead of handing it over. “He’ll want to ask like, a whole bunch of questions about the new ones, or whatever.”

He grins at Nolan, but there’s something to the twist to his lips—something pinched, and tense—that Nolan can’t help staring at. But Liam just settles his own backpack further on his shoulders, and starts walking towards the doors at the end of the hallway, the ones that lead out to the parking lot.

“C’mon,” he calls over his shoulder. “I’ll take you to him.”

_**Theo** _

Theo slices his palm open on Josh’s fang when he catches the distinctive rhythm of Liam’s heartbeat coming down the tunnels leading into the operating theater.

“ _Shit_ ,” he hisses, his fingers reflexively jerking open at the quick bite of pain.

He manages to catch Josh’s fang with his other hand before it can clatter to the table, and he’s just finished tucking it away under a chaotic sprawl of papers when Liam appears in the second floor tunnel doorway, Nolan trailing along after him. Frowning up at them, Theo snags a relatively clean piece of cloth from the mismatched collection of medical supplies still left on the table and around the room, and starts wiping the blood off his hand.

“What are you two doing here?” He calls, and tosses the now-bloody rag away.

“Nolan found something,” Liam calls back, and leads Nolan step-step-step down the stairs onto the main floor, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous room.

“Nolan found something,” Theo repeats, looking first at Liam as he approaches, and then at Nolan as he follows.

“Yeah,” Liam confirms. “That’s what I _said_.” He frowns, his brow furrowing, and glances around. “Why’s it smell like blood?”

“It doesn’t,” Theo counters shortly. He looks at Nolan. “What’d you find?”

But it isn’t Nolan who responds. Liam reaches into his back pocket, and pulls out a single sheet of folded-up paper. He holds it out with a grin.

Eyebrows climbing, Theo takes it, and glances down at it. “A calculus quiz,” he observes.

Liam snatches it back from him, and quickly unfolds it. “ _This_ , you asshole,” he corrects, irritated, and holds it back out.

Theo can see the stark black symbols even _before_ he reaches back out. His eyes rove quickly over the various curves and lines of the symbols, and then again, his mind kicking immediately into overdrive.

He’s caught up enough in his thoughts that he jumps when Nolan suddenly offers, “There’s, um. There’s this, too.”

When Theo looks back up, Nolan is offering out a spiral notebook, clearly retrieved from the half-unzipped backpack now slung crossways across his chest. Holding the first sheet with one hand, Theo reaches out and takes the notebook, and then holds both in front of himself as he glances between the two, studying the different symbols.

“Oh, _christ_ ,” Theo breathes after a few seconds, and immediately turns so that he can drop both the sheet and the notebook on the table he’d been working at, and then shifts to the side so he can look at the old, heavy leather tome sitting carefully like an island amidst the rest of the chaos of his research.

Liam immediately follows him. “What’s _that_ mean?” He demands, crowding in close to Theo’s back as he peers over Theo’s shoulder. “Why _‘oh, christ?’_ ”

Theo turns to glare at him, but it’s pure exasperation, no heat, and Liam clearly sees that; he grins widely, and doesn’t move back. Rolling his eyes and electing to ignore him for the moment, Theo concentrates on the book, his eyes skimming and skimming down the densely-packed, handwritten text; skating over the meticulously drawn symbols that accompany it. He finds what he’s looking for.

“Here, look at this,” he instructs, pointing at one of the symbols. As soon as he does it, he realizes that he can’t see Nolan, and he looks up and around for him. “Nolan,” he says, when he spots Nolan still hovering uncertainly in the middle of the room.

Nolan jumps. “Um, yeah?”

Theo stares at him. “Come _here_ ,” he orders, exasperated. He turns back to the book just in time to make a startled noise and catch Liam’s wrist before Liam can actually manage to touch the yellowed, wrinkled page that Theo had pointed to. “Don’t touch that.”

“ _You_ touch it,” Liam accuses, petulant.

“Yeah, because I know _how to_ without destroying it,” Theo counters, and only then realizes that he’s still holding on to Liam’s wrist. He releases it quickly, his eyes flicking to the pile of papers under which he’d hidden Josh’s fang. Clearing his throat, he shifts to put a few more inches between himself and Liam, and orders, “Both of you, look at where I’m pointing, but _don’t touch_.”

“That’s the main symbol from the sheet Nolan found at the warehouse,” Liam says after a few seconds, the casual tone gone from his voice. His eyes skip over the various other symbols on the page, but as instructed, he keeps his hands to himself.

“Right,” Theo agrees, and winds up shifting _back_ towards Liam to make room for Nolan on his other side as Nolan walks slowly, hesitantly, up. “And combined with these ones,” Theo continues, pointing out each symbol in turn and ignoring the long line of heat that Liam creates along his side, “it would create—”

“The binding spell Deaton mentioned,” Nolan murmurs, and then immediately freezes, his eyes going deer-in-the-headlights wide.

Theo ignores his reaction. “Exactly,” he agrees. “A spell like that would explain the werewolf-on-werewolf attacks, because—”

This time it’s Liam that interrupts him. “Because Monroe could be using it to bind werewolves to her, control them.” He looks up at Theo to check his understanding. Theo nods.

“So,” Nolan speaks up, quietly but unexpectedly enough that Theo jolts, jerked out of his accidental, tunnel-visioned focus on Liam. Nolan flinches a little when Theo jerks his head around to look at him instead. But he rallies, and picks Liam’s earlier question back up. “So why _‘oh, christ’?_ ”

It takes Theo a second to shake off his distraction, and dig back through his recent memories for his earlier exclamation. His earlier exclamation and the immediate, sharp spike of dread he’d felt as he’d looked down at the additional symbols that Nolan had drawn—the additional symbols that Nolan had remembered _Monroe_ drawing—and realized what it might mean. Exhaling out more than a little roughly, Theo nudges Liam to the side so that he can lean over the book, and retrieve a pair of gloves that he then slides briskly onto his hands before settling back on his heels.

“The additional symbols Nolan remembered,” Theo says, and reaches forward so that he can carefully— _carefully_ —turn the pages of the old, stiff yellowed tome. “When combined with the original symbols, they change the meaning of the spell.” He finds the page—and the symbols—he’s looking for, and lets the new page settle slowly flat, and then points at it. “If he’s right, then the spell isn’t for binding.”

Liam frowns. “Then…what’s it for?” He asks, looking up at Theo. Theo looks back at him.

“Transference,” he answers, his voice barely more than a murmur as he meets Liam’s eyes. “It’d be for transference.”

“But transferring what?” Nolan wonders blankly, and Theo—and Liam, Theo can see him jerk, too—jumps again. Shaking himself and biting off a harsh, frustrated noise—what the hell is _wrong_ with him today—Theo takes a few steps back so he can step out from between the two of them, and drops into a nearby chair.

“Who knows?” He answers, more shortly than he’d intended. He starts stripping the gloves off his hands. “But considering it’s _Monroe_ , I doubt it can be anything good.”

He throws the gloves away towards one of the other tables, and then frowns as he catches sight of his phone lying close by where the gloves land.

“Wait,” he says, brow furrowing. “What the hell time is it?”

Liam’s expression slams shut.

“Liam, for _christ’s—_ ” Theo starts to snap, and then breaks off to cover his face with his hands as he gives a spiked, rough groan that’s very nearly a growl.

“What, so you _didn’t_ want to see—” He starts to argue hotly, and even the dim, shitty lighting of the operating theater manages to pick out the flecks of molten gold that start to fill his irises.

“You could have _waited_ ,” Theo interrupts. “Or, hell, _sent me a picture_. We have the technology.” Stood a few feet away from Liam, Nolan flinches; so he’d suggested that, clearly.

“Why are you being such a dick about this?” Liam shoots back. “My school attendance record isn’t _your problem—_ ”

“It is now that Scott’s apparently made me your _keeper_ ,” Theo snarls back. “And of the two of us, _I’m_ the only one with the magical choke chain around my wrist, so maybe—!”

“Well maybe if you’d stop _avoiding_ me—!” Liam shouts, and takes a pointed step forward.

“Maybe I’m sick of being your goddamn babysitter!” Theo yells back. “Maybe I’m wishing you’d take care of your own shit, for once!”

The silence that falls in the operating theater after is near-total. The loudest sound is Nolan’s pounding heartbeat, really, and it’s only then that Theo realizes that his own eyes had flared to match Liam’s. Swallowing—and already feeling more than a little sick to his stomach—he blinks away the shift, and only reluctantly drags his eyes back to Liam as he slouches back in his chair, his jaw clenching.

Liam stares at him. The shift fades only slowly from his eyes, the heave of his shoulders only slowly ceasing, too, until finally he works his jaw, and shakes his head.

“You’re such an asshole,” he says, quiet and nearly flat, and then he shakes his head again and starts for the stairs back up to the operating theater exit.

Theo doesn’t stop him.

He does look at Nolan, though, still stood frozen exactly where he had been. “Your ride is leaving.”

Nolan winces, his eyes flicking up to where Liam had disappeared, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t move, and his expression spasms, his bottom lip getting sucked in between his teeth as he bites down on it. Theo feels his eyes narrow.

“What?” He demands.

Nolan jumps. “No, nothing,” he tries, so clearly lying, and Theo rolls his eyes.

“You are wasting a _golden_ opportunity,” he observes tiredly as he drops his head back onto the chair back behind himself.

He can’t see Nolan’s frown, but he can hear it in his voice when he says, “Wh-what?”

Theo smirks up at the ceiling, but even the edges of his amusement feel spiked, and poisonous. “You’re already a pariah,” he tells Nolan, and catches Nolan’s sharp, startled inhale. “It’s not like you’ve got much farther you can fall. You might as well take advantage, and say what’s actually on your mind.”

A few seconds of silence drag past, Nolan clearly debating, but when he speaks, there isn’t the judgement, or resentment, that Theo had been expecting. Instead there’s just a tired, quiet sort of understanding, which; Theo flinches, feeling it like a knife between his ribs.

“You did that on purpose,” he concludes softly. “Making Liam angry with you. You did that on purpose.”

Theo can’t help it; he has to curl back up, and over the vulnerable core of himself, his shoulders rounding and his back hunching. “Yeah, well,” he replies eventually. “It’s better for everyone if he stays that way.”

He glances up at Nolan after. He can’t help it. Nolan’s back to biting his lip, and studying Theo through soft, hooded eyes.

“Yeah?” He wonders pointedly, though not unkindly. “Is that…is that what Liam thinks, too?”

Theo can’t help squeezing his eyes shut, and raking his hands roughly back through his hair. “Liam has the self-preservation instincts of a rock. His opinion doesn’t get to count.”

He sighs after he’s said it, and braces his hands flat on his knees as he pushes himself back alright. Nolan doesn’t say anything else as Theo walks over to the table on which he’d left his phone, and actually checks the time.

“Do you need a ride back to the school?” Theo asks, and winces at how _exhausted_ he sounds. “I can—”

“Actually,” Nolan interrupts. Theo looks over at him to find him standing with his head bowed, and one hand clasped around his opposite elbow, his whole posture already one preemptive flinch. “Actually, could I…? You won’t even notice I’m here,” he insists, before he’s actually asked anything. “I’ll keep working on the symbols, and you won’t—won’t even notice I’m here.”

Theo studies him, and then, almost involuntarily, his eyes fall down to the pile of papers under which he’d hidden Josh’s fang; intentionally or not, Nolan had stood nearly directly in front of it.

“Do what you want,” he finds himself saying, not exactly unkindly. He quirks Nolan a small, ghost of a smile when Nolan looks up at him in surprise. “No overly-hopeful true alpha made me _your_ keeper, after all.”

Nolan gives him a shaky grin right back, and then starts looking around, clearly trying to find a place that he could claim.

Theo lets him, his eyes drifting slowly back up to the tunnel mouth into which Liam had disappeared.

_**Nolan** _

For nearly eight weeks Nolan has successfully avoided driving down this exact street, but he’s already late for first period, and he can’t afford the extra fifteen minutes that his usual detour would cost him.

He does his best to keep his eyes glued to the road as he goes, but it’s not like he can really _help_ seeing the deceptively picturesque suburban houses on either side of the street. _The McKammons_. _The Vasis_. Nolan and Gabe had spent an entire summer one year sneaking in and out of the Humods’ backyard; it’d been the straightest shot to the Preserve from Gabe’s house. Nolan can still remember one night, and the exact cool feel of the bottle of vodka that Gabe had filched from his parents against his chest as he and Gabe had shouted and ran, laughing, at the sight of Mr. Humod flicking on the Humod’s back porch light.

Maybe that’s why he can’t stop himself from glancing at Gabe’s house as he passes it; because he’d already been thinking about him.

But whatever the reason, he nearly gives himself whiplash when he slams on the brakes a split-second after he does. In the driveway of the house, Gabe’s mom startles hard enough at the resulting _screech_ that she drops the box in her hands, and it hits the ground on one of its corners and bursts open, spilling its contents across the concrete and over and around the other boxes and bags and random items already piled there. Guilt and anxiety immediately bolt through Nolan’s chest at the sight, but he shoves them away as he jerks his car to the side and throws it into park, uncaring of how crooked it is, or the fact that it’s half up on the sidewalk. He barely remembers to slam his door shut as he struggles out of his seatbelt and all but throws himself out of the car.

“Mrs. Bedoya,” he calls as he runs up to her, forcing himself to ignore the hand she has pressed to her chest and the narrow, unwelcome look in her eyes. “Mrs. Bedoya, what are you…?”

“Nolan,” Gabe’s mom greets him coolly. “What are you doing here?”

Nolan jerks an unsteady thumb over his shoulder. “I was, I was just—” But he can’t finish the thought, his mind too much of a confused, panicked whirl. “Mrs. Bedoya, what are you…This is all—this is all Gabe’s stuff.”

Both of them look reflexively down at the piles of boxes and tied-closed trash bags sitting in the corner of the driveway. Nolan feels his chest clench as his eyes skip over things he recognizes—Gabe’s lacrosse stick, a bagged sleeping bag that’d been more Nolan’s than Gabe’s, really; a collection of Gabe’s shirts that Nolan can see through the stretched-thin plastic of one of the trash bags—but the line of Gabe’s mom’s mouth just goes tight.

“Gabe’s father and I,” she says, with a deliberate prick of emphasis that Nolan feels like a sting, “decided it was time. There’s a truck coming from one of the donation centers later today.”

“But, Mrs. Bedoya,” Nolan tries, though he has no idea what his objection actually _is_. He just knows—the weight of it sitting like a stone in the bottom of his stomach, his throat and chest feeling raw with it like it’d scraped down his ribcage and displaced all his organs on its way—that he objects. “But, Mrs. Bedoya, he was…He _was_ …”

“I know what he was,” Gabe’s mom all but hisses, and Nolan recoils at the vitriol in her voice. His reaction seems to startle her out of it, a bit, and she shakes her head like she’s clearing it, and straightens up some. “He was my son,” she says firmly. “But he was also…”

She can’t seem to finish her sentence. She clears her throat, eventually, and looks at Nolan head-on. Nolan can’t help flinching.

“Look,” she finally offers quietly. “If you want, you can—look through everything, and take whatever you want. Okay?”

 _Okay_ , Nolan tries to say, and can’t. He stares fixedly at the ground in front of Gabe’s mom’s shoes, and swallows, and tries again. “Okay,” he finally manages to croak. He manages to drag his gaze back up to hers, too, to find her looking back, her eyes hooded and her mouth now soft.

“Okay,” she echoes.

And then she sighs, and crouches down, and starts gathering up the items that had fallen out of the box she’d dropped. After a second, Nolan crouches down, and starts to help.

He’s been sitting on an empty picnic table in a little-used park just off the center of downtown for maybe two hours when Theo finds him. Nolan hears his truck before he sees him, his head jerking upwards to stare in surprise as the muted roar of Theo’s truck engine cuts off, Theo sliding it into a spot along the sidewalk bordering the park before finally shutting it off. Biting his lip, Nolan looks back down, and away, and burrows a little more firmly into one of Gabe’s hoodies, hunching a little further into the too-big drape of it and pulling the too-long sleeves a little further down over his hands.

“I guess I should be grateful that this time you at least stuck to wandering around _downtown_ unsupervised,” Theo calls as he starts to walk over, “rather than in the middle of nowhere.”

Nolan grins a little, small and helplessly. When he tips his head to look at Theo, Theo has his hands tucked in his pockets, and his stride is easy, unbothered; leisurely. “There are cameras, and everything,” Nolan replies, a few seconds later than would really have been natural, and gestures one of his fabric-swathed hands towards the camera mounted on a nearby telephone pole.

Theo snorts a quiet laugh, his lips twitching, and then gets his hands on the picnic table next to Nolan to boost himself up. He settles down with his hip a few inches away from Nolan’s, but even still Nolan almost immediately starts to feel his heat bleed through his own jeans and Gabe’s hoodie, warming his side.

“Liam called,” he offers quietly, though Nolan hadn’t asked.

Nolan flinches, his fingers picking and picking at the inside of the sleeves of Gabe’s hoodie, his hands resting in his lap. But he tries to inject as much levity into his voice as he can as he says, “Oh, so he’s not mad at you anymore?”

Theo must hear the attempted lightness in his voice because he grants Nolan another of those small laughs, though he looks away, and out towards the unoccupied park, as he replies, “Guess not.”

Nolan studies him. “And you, um,” he starts to ask, hesitant and with the levity gone from his voice, but for some reason helplessly curious, “you didn’t try and make him angry, again?”

“No,” Theo answers, and snorts another laugh. This one isn’t humorous, though. “I thought about it,” he admits, after a second. “I _should_ have,” he adds, and then all at once he flops backwards onto his back across the surface of the picnic table as he says, as he _confesses_ ; Nolan can recognize the tone: “I just…couldn’t bring myself to do it.” After a moment he murmurs, “Just one more thing I’ve failed at,” almost to himself.

Nolan feels himself frowning a little, sensing a story there, or sensing _something_ , but he doesn't know what it is. But Theo just quirks Nolan a defeated smile when Nolan glances back at him. Nolan returns it, and then flinches, helplessly, and looks away again. He keeps worrying a fingernail against the inside of the sleeve of Gabe’s hoodie as he swallows, his throat tight.

But Theo, somewhat miraculously, doesn’t say anything, or press. He just keeps lying flat on his back next to Nolan’s hip, though eventually he tucks one hand behind his head, his other braced in the air and his fingers flick-flick-flicking something that he’d slipped out of his front jeans’ pocket over and around his knuckles, over and over again. Nolan finds himself a little mesmerized by the little flashes of pearlescent white he can see in between Theo’s fingers as whatever-it-is catches the weak winter sunlight.

“What is that?” He eventually can’t stop himself from asking.

Theo immediately freezes, his fingers clenching down and around the object. He tips his head to look over at it like he’s surprised to see it in his hand, and Nolan is already opening his mouth to backtrack even as Theo is swiveling his wrist down and around so that his palm is facing upwards, his fingers unfurling from around the object like a time-lapsed flower blooming open.

“Did you know Josh Diaz?” Theo suddenly asks, cutting Nolan off as Nolan goes to say _nevermind, forget it, I’m sorry_.

The question is enough of a seeming nonsequitur to interrupt Nolan’s thought process, his apology drying up in his confusion. “Um,” Nolan says after a few seconds. “Um, yeah. Or at least, I did. We went to middle school together,” he explains, when Theo glances over at him. “But he—he started missing class, a lot, in high school. And then he just…”

“Disappeared?” Theo fills in, when Nolan hesitates.

“For a little while,” Nolan agrees quietly. “He came back, right about when—” His throat closes up around the words _right about when the Beast showed up_. Swallowing, Nolan forces himself to keep going. “And then he disappeared again.”

“No,” Theo disagrees, and when Nolan looks over at him, Theo isn’t looking at him, but is staring straight-up, jaw clenched, at the sky. “And then he _died_ again.”

 _Again?_ Nolan thinks blankly. “What?”

But Theo doesn’t seem to hear him, or is too caught up in his own thoughts to care. He twists his wrist to change his grip on the object so that he has it held between his thumb and middle-finger instead, and then tilts it back and forth as he stares at it. Nolan stares at it, too, the long and the surface of it smooth; the surface of it _bone_ , Nolan realizes with a jolt.

“He was a chimera, like me and Corey and Mason,” Theo explains. “And Tracy,” he adds, something gone more than a little hard in his tone. “Tracy Stewart.”

 _She disappeared, too_ , Nolan finds himself thinking, intuition starting to arc along his spine. _Twice_. But:

“Okay,” he finally says quietly, unsure what exactly Theo’s driving at.

Theo tips his head more fully sideways, and gives him a strange look. “You really don’t know all this, do you?”

Nolan looks back, and then shakes his head. “I think—” He starts to say, and the sheer amount of self-deprecating humor in his voice surprises even himself. “I think you all tend to _way_ overestimate how much—how much Monroe trusted me, or cared.”

Theo snorts another humorless laugh. “Yeah. Maybe we do.” He lets his head turn back forward, so he’s staring up at the sky again. As Nolan watches he flexes his fingers in a wave, and the object disappears into his now-closed fist. He drops it over his heart. “I killed them,” he finally says. “Josh, and Tracy. They disappeared the second time because I killed them.”

Nolan’s thoughts jam up, just this instant train-wreck. “Oh,” he finds himself saying. “Oh, no, I, um. I didn’t know that.”

Theo gives him an incredulous look. “That’s it?” He asks, disbelief practically dripping from his words. “I tell you I killed two people, and that’s your response?” He laughs, sharp-edged and not-at-all friendly. “Jesus. I guess Liam isn’t the only one with the self-preservation instincts of a rock.”

Nolan flinches, but. _Maybe I’m sick of being your babysitter_ , Theo had yelled at Liam. _Maybe I’m wishing you’d take care of your own shit, for once_ , he’d added, and then he’d spent the entirety of the rest of the night staring up at the tunnel mouth where Liam had disappeared, his fingers moving restlessly around and around what Nolan can recognize in hindsight as that self-same object now closed tightly—closed _carefully_ —in Theo’s fist.

 _You did that on purpose_ , Nolan had told Theo. _Making Liam angry with you. You did that on purpose_. He bites his lip.

“Gabe shot up the McCall’s house for me,” he blurts out, and then flinches hard enough that he winds up all but curled over his knees.

When he finally manages to uncurl enough to sneak a look at Theo, Theo is staring back at him, brow furrowed and mouth dropped softly open in stunned surprise. “What?” He finally breathes.

Nolan winces, and tries to explain, “It was right after the station, and then the zoo, when I’d failed to kill Jiang, and the other werewolf girl he was with. And—and—”

“And us,” Theo fills in. “Me and Liam.”

“Y-yeah,” Nolan stammers, and hunches down a little more into Gabe’s hoodie. He squeezes his eyes shut. “And Monroe was so disappointed, and she kept—kept asking if she had to worry about me screwing up again, and—and then—”

“Nolan,” Theo tries.

But Nolan just talks over him. “I didn’t even know until the next day,” he hurries to add. “I didn’t—He pulled me into the locker room, and he said…he _said_ …”

 _I did it for you_. Nolan buries his face in his hands. In _Gabe’s hoodie_ , the sleeves of it still pulled down over his fingers. _I know what he was_ , Gabe’s mom had hissed at him. _He was my son, but he was also…_

Nolan feels tears start to burn in the corners of his eyes, and he squeezes them more tightly shut, and hunches over even further.

“I’m sorry,” Nolan says, his voice more than half a sob. “I’m so sorry for all of it, for everything. I’m—I’m _sorry_.”

Theo doesn’t say anything for a while, and then finally he murmurs, “Yeah. Me too.”

_**Theo** _

“Look, Argent,” Theo says hesitantly, his fingers going tighter around his phone. “Unless you tell me otherwise, I’m not—I’m not going to bring Nolan.”

“No,” Argent agrees after a few seconds. “No, don’t bring him.”

Theo swallows around the surge of relief that goes rushing down his throat. He clears it, after. “Okay. Okay, then I’ll be there in,” he pauses, and takes his phone away from his ear to double-check his map app, “three hours, give or take.”

Parrish isn’t outside the building this time when Theo arrives, but it’s because he doesn’t need to be; Theo hesitates at the edge of the sidewalk as he stares up at the letters carved into the stone of the building, _Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department_ , and then grits his teeth, and forces himself forward. Inside, the station is bustling, and Theo has to weave his way through clumps of deputies and civilians and a public defender having a hissed, whispered argument on their cell phone by one of the conference room doors.

Finally he manages it. The deputy manning the front desk gives him a narrow-eyed look as he walks up, but relaxes after Theo gives his name.

“Pillai, get over here,” the deputy calls. Another deputy—young, fresh-faced, probably a new recruit, Theo finds himself thinking—jogs up, and the first deputy nods towards Theo. “He’s here to see McPherson, down in the morgue.”

Theo hears the name, and feels _fear_ go sliding down his spine like ice. It takes him a few seconds to blink away his surprise, the first deputy’s narrow-eyed, assessing stare returning as Theo stays rooted to the spot, and it’s that more than anything that jolts Theo out of it, and lets him turn to follow Deputy Pillai down into the bowels of the building. Luckily Pillai doesn’t try to talk to him; Theo shoves his hands—his claws prickling helplessly at his fingertips—into his pockets, the knuckles of his right hand bumping up against Josh’s fang. He tries to concentrate on slowing his breathing; on tamping down his suddenly-singing instincts.

“Here you go,” Pillai eventually says, shouldering open a set of wide, swinging metal doors into a cool basement room. He stays where he is long enough for Theo to slip past him with a murmured _thanks_ into the morgue proper, and then he backs out with a muted, acknowledging _sir_ to the older deputy stood next to Argent by one of the examination tables. There’s a sheet-covered body laid out on top of the table; Theo can smell the increasing scent of death rising off of it.

“Mr. Raeken,” McPherson greets as the doors swing back shut behind Theo. His eyes flare gold as he says it, there and gone. “Welcome. It’s good to finally put a face to the name.”

Theo’s jaw clenches as his own eyes flare reflexively back, his shoulders already rigid enough with tension that he can feel them practically vibrating with it. It doesn’t help that his fangs keep trying to lengthen; Theo can feel them start cutting into his gums, though he can’t force his jaw to unlock enough to stop it.

But McPherson doesn’t say anything else to him, just gives him a level, inscrutable look for a few seconds longer, and turns back to Argent, and Scott and the Sheriff as well, the latter two stood by a second examination table and a second—and a third—body a few feet away. Theo can’t help exhaling out a shaky breath as he blinks away the shift from his eyes, though he almost immediately freezes back up when he realizes that Argent is watching him. Theo stares at him, caught, but after a second Argent just jerks his chin towards Scott.

“Hey, Theo,” Scott greets quietly as Theo walks up to him.

There’s a searching look in his eyes, and a question tucked away in the corners of the tight line of his mouth. But he doesn’t say anything else, just shoots a look at McPherson, and then glances once more at Theo, and finally gives Theo a quirked, conflicted half-smile that’s more than a little a grimace, and refocuses on the room. Theo swallows down his own grimace, his muscles having to work past the tight, claustrophobic clutch of his throat, and tries to do the same.

“The part that your friends,” McPherson says, apparently having been waiting for Theo to get settled, and with an odd emphasis on _friends_ that Theo chooses—after a split-second of sharp, piercing anxiety—to ignore, “wanted you to see is on the right forearm.” He gestures towards the body behind the Sheriff and Scott and Theo.

Theo shoots Scott a look, and then flicks it to the Sheriff behind him. Scott gives him another of those half-smiles, and the Sheriff nods, so Theo steels himself, and—still ignoring McPherson’s watchful, steady attention—pivots around so that he can reach for the sheet covering the body.

Almost instantly his anxiety gets dragged away, his attention zeroing in on—on the _brands_ burned into the dead man’s right forearm. “What the _hell_ ,” he murmurs, and moves in closer, bending low over the raised, scarred skin, his eyes moving over the intricate twists and turns of the symbols.

“You’ve been spending more time studying the symbols than any of us,” Argent says after a half-minute or so. “So you tell us—they’re the same?”

“Yeah,” Theo says after another few seconds, his eyes still roving over the brands; the morbidity of it all—for the moment—shoved aside. “For a _binding_ spell, anyway.”

He twists around so he can give Argent a pointed look. Argent’s chin tips up as he apparently realizes what Theo’s insinuating. But, Theo thinks, eyes narrowing, he doesn’t look _surprised_. Instead Argent’s jaw tightens, and he exhales out a slow, careful breath through his nose. “Look at the second body. Both forearms,” he orders.

 _What the hell is going on_ , Theo wonders, but he does as instructed. Scott moves back out of the way as Theo turns—Theo leaving the sheet folded back from the first body’s forearm to leave its branded skin uncovered—and reaches for the second body, instead. But its left forearm is bare, the skin smooth. Frowning, and with intuition starting to sing at the back of his brain, Theo braces himself with one hand on the cool metal of the exam table and leans over so that he can fold the sheet back from the body’s right forearm. He drops back down flat on his feet afterwards, his eyes still fixed on the equally-smooth skin revealed.

“I don’t,” he starts to say as he looks up, brow furrowed, at Argent and then at McPherson, but he stops, watching. McPherson settles back on his heels the next moment, the sheet over the third body now folded back so that its forearms are bare, too. Its _smooth_ forearms.

Its _unbranded_ forearms.

Theo glances back and forth between the three bodies, his mind whirring. “So this one,” he theorizes slowly, his attention on the branded body, “killed those two?” He nods towards the other two, unbranded bodies. But:

“Other way around,” the Sheriff corrects quietly.

Theo’s head jerks around to stare at him. “ _What?_ ” He turns almost instantly to McPherson instead, his anxiety and fear momentarily forgotten. “Were they—?”

“Ours?” McPherson interprets, interrupting. “No. They weren’t part of packs that we’re aware of. They weren’t,” he continues pointedly, “part of any pack at _all_ , at least not as of a week ago.”

“You knew them,” Theo realizes. “They were human.”

McPherson nods. Theo looks away from him, and back at the bodies, his hands coming up to cover his mouth as he thinks. “This doesn’t make any…” He murmurs, his eyes drawn helplessly back to the brands on the first body; the _victim’s_ body, apparently. He looks back at McPherson. “Your people killed the two unmarked werewolves?”

“They were rabid, just about,” McPherson replies.

Theo shakes his head. “This doesn’t make any _sense_ ,” he repeats, the words little more than a reflexive, baffled protest.

“What about the other symbols Nolan found, the ones that change the meaning of the spell from—” Argent starts to ask.

“Binding to transference?” Theo interrupts. “ _No_.” He insists, confusion—and his discomfort at being so confused—turning his tone sharp. “Monroe isn’t a witch or a druid, she can’t conjure magic out of thin air. She’d _need_ something like this,” he gestures at the brands on the first body, “to create the spell, and then control it. She _can’t be_ …”

He trails off, because he’d been about to insist _she can’t be controlling them without a physical focus of some kind_ , except. The two unmarked, unbranded bodies lay silent on their individual tables, undeniable proof that she _had_. That she _could_.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Theo says one last time, and then he looks up and around at Scott, at the Sheriff; at Argent and McPherson.

McPherson sighs. “Let’s go back upstairs, and I can fill you in on the rest. The coroner is one of ours,” he adds, at Scott’s and Theo’s hesitant, shared glance. “She’ll take care of the bodies.”

Two hours later Theo makes his excuses and leaves Scott and the Sheriff and Argent still sat in the conference room McPherson had claimed for them, and weaves his way back out of the station. McPherson glances at him as Theo comes through the swinging double-doors, but keeps right on talking into the phone pressed to his ear, his _yes, ma’am’s_ and _no, ma’am’s_ cutting through the crisp late-morning air. Theo hesitates for a second, and then he leans back against one of the stone walls lining either side of the sidewalk into the station, his hands tucked into his pockets and his eyes glued to the sidewalk. He wraps his right fingers tightly around Josh’s fang.

“Mr. Raeken,” McPherson finally acknowledges a few minutes later. Theo jerks his head up to look up at him in time to see him end his call, and slide his phone back into his pocket.

“Theo,” Theo corrects, though he has to squeeze it out through his vice-tight throat; the first time McPherson had said _Raeken_ he’d managed to avoid flinching, but not this time. He thinks, helplessly and unbidden, of his sister. “Just—just Theo, please.”

McPherson’s eyebrows shoot up at the _please_. But: “Sure,” he agrees easily, “Theo it is,” and then doesn’t say anything else. Theo swallows.

“You didn’t say anything in there, to Scott or the others,” he finally says, more tentative than he’d like; more tentative than he ever typically _is_ , or allows himself to be.

McPherson studies him. “No need,” he answers after a few long, dragging seconds. “McCall already talked to Shohreh.” McPherson pauses, his expression going a little more thoughtful; a little more narrow. “He vouched for you.”

Theo stares at him. “He did _what?_ ”

McPherson smirks. “Yeah, that was about Shohreh’s reaction, too.”

If Theo doesn’t unclench his fingers from around Josh’s fang, he’s going to slice through them. “And that was good enough for her? Scott’s word?”

“For now,” McPherson agrees.

He starts heading back towards the station entrance, though he pauses when he reaches Theo’s side.

“I’d recommend you stay out of Chemult, though,” he offers, and the look on his face this time isn’t thoughtful at all; it’s just narrow. “Scott’s word—a _true alpha’s_ word—or not, if Quentin gets ahold of you he’s going to rip you apart.”

Theo feels his throat close the rest of the way up, and he can’t stop his jaw from clenching or his eyes from squeezing shut.

“Noted,” he manages to choke out, but when he manages to open his eyes back up, McPherson is already gone.

_**Nolan** _

Nolan doesn’t realize that Liam is at Theo’s until he’s already started rolling open Theo’s front door, and by then it’s too late for him to stop.

Wincing and gritting his teeth, he finishes pulling open the door but then can’t help pausing in the middle of the doorway as both Liam’s and Theo’s attention snaps to him. They’re at Theo’s table—or the McCall’s old dining room table, anyway, but at some point Theo’s probably going to have to stop referring to all his furniture as the McCall’s—with Theo stood on one side of it and Liam just flat-out sitting _on_ it, and close enough that Theo’s arm is brushing his side from where Theo had clearly been mid-writing something. The goofy smile that Liam had been wearing flattens into a line as he stares at Nolan.

“Hey,” Theo greets, either actually or purposefully oblivious to Liam’s sudden change in mood. “Everything okay?”

Nolan bites his lip, and darts a look at Liam. “Y-yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine. I was just hoping…”

He trails off, but Theo apparently doesn’t need him to finish. He looks back down at whatever he’d been doing. “Sure. That’s why you’ve got the key,” he points out absently, and finishes scribbling whatever it was that he’d been writing.

Liam, on the other hand, looks entirely affronted. “You gave him a _key?_ ” He asks incredulously. Nolan preemptively flinches, but Liam doesn’t even look at him. “You keep ‘confiscating’ mine!”

“That is because _you_ ,” Theo answers, his focus still on the table in front of him, “have the house manners of a wild baboon.”

But even as he says it he’s smirking, sly and with crinkled eyes as he tilts his head to look up at Liam. Liam manages to hold his apparently mock-outrage on his face for a few seconds, and then he cracks up and knocks into Theo with his shoulder, Theo complaining _hey_ and shoving him away with a hand on the side of his face. But:

“Nolan,” Theo suddenly says, and Nolan jerks, his eyes shooting up to Theo’s. Theo gives him a strange look. “You planning on hanging out in my doorway all night?”

“Oh,” Nolan stammers, flushing. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

He hurries to step inside and roll the door shut behind himself. He can’t help pulling the sleeves of Gabe’s hoodie down over his hands once he’s done, hiding his fidgeting fingers as he hesitates, still feeling awkward and like he’d maybe— _definitely_ —interrupted something. After a second he looks up, his instincts prickling, to find Theo still looking at him, narrow-eyed and searching. He tilts his head slightly in a silent question, and Nolan flushes again and shakes his head rapidly. Shouldering his backpack a little more, Nolan starts making a beeline for the couch.

“Hey,” he hears as he swings his backpack down, and drops onto the cushions, “you still haven’t finished explaining what any of this has to do with those dead werewolves that McPherson guy showed you and Scott and everyone.” Theo grunts as Liam finishes talking; Nolan glances up, and sees that Liam had dug a knee into the side of Theo’s ribs.

Theo knocks it away, though he doesn’t complain when Liam settles his leg right back down on the table right next to Theo’s arm. “ _That McPherson guy_ is a deputy in more ways than one,” Theo answers crabbily. “He’s Shohreh Khorisani’s number two.”

“That still doesn’t explain what your arts and crafts project here has to do with the bodies he showed you,” Liam sing-songs, deliberately grating; Nolan smirks down at the notebooks he’s pulling out of his backpack, amused.

“I _told you_ ,” Theo retorts. “They’re missing persons files from around Northern California, and into Southern Oregon.” He stops, and mutters, “‘Arts and crafts project,’ jesus,” under his breath.

“You think Monroe is kidnapping people?” Liam asks; Nolan can hear the confused frown in his voice, the pigtail-pulling tone gone.

“I think she’s _turning_ people,” Theo counters. Nolan hears more scribbling, Theo’s pen rasping over paper.

“What the fuck,” Liam says blankly. “Why would she…? _How_ could she…?”

Theo straightens up. Nolan looks up reflexively as he does, attention caught. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” He replies, not sounding irritated so much as exhausted.

Nolan flicks his eyes to Liam just in time to catch Liam frowning at the side of Theo’s face, Liam’s expression soft and more than a little concerned. Nolan jerks his gaze back down before Liam can catch him looking.

“When was the last time you ate something?” He hears Liam ask, low like a secret; Nolan can’t stop himself from sneaking another look.

“I’m fine, Liam,” Theo answers, just as low, and with a note of warning in his voice. But:

“I’m ordering food,” Liam announces, loud and suddenly enough after his quiet exchange with Theo that Nolan jumps, and nearly dumps the textbook he’d opened in his lap onto the floor. He’s still trying to rescue it from the cock-eyed way he’d managed to catch it that he jumps _again_ when Liam hollers, “Nolan! What do you want?”

Nolan jerks to look up at him, wide-eyed. “Um,” he says, intelligently.

He winds up falling asleep on Theo’s couch, the carton of Chinese he’d been eating out of still sitting on the coffee table in front of him with his chopsticks still sticking forlornly out of the top. There’s a blanket over him; Nolan squeezes his eyes shut, and pulls it a little tighter around himself.

Except then his eyes pop right back open.

“Theo, this is idiotic,” Liam hisses, and Nolan’s not sure for a second if his rough whispered tone is because he’s trying not to wake Nolan up, or because he’s pissed-off, or both. “You can’t go _alone_.”

“I’m _not_ going alone,” Theo snaps back, just as quietly but just as forcefully. “I’m not going _anywhere_.”

“Not _yet_ ,” Liam counters, and it’s both; it’s _definitely_ both. “But you said it yourself: once Scott and Argent and the Sheriff and the others manage to narrow down the missing persons list, you’re going to go investigate where they disappeared from. And I quote, _I’ll be able to move faster and more discreetly on my own_.”

“I _will be_ ,” Theo shoots back. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but Monroe considers Scott her enemy number one. Which means every member of his pack is going to be a glaring target, so—”

But Liam just interrupts him. “Are you _listening_ to yourself?” He asks incredulously, the volume of his voice starting to rise. “ _Every member of his pack_ , that means yo—”

“That means _you_ ,” Theo counters, cutting him off. “That means you, and Malia, and Derek, and Argent, and every other one of Scott’s collection of misfits. I can stay off her radar. I was _bred_ to stay off people like hers’ radar.”

Nolan frowns. _Bred to stay off people like hers’ radar…?_ But he doesn’t have time to concentrate on it; Liam lets loose a loud, frustrated sound. “Theo!” He complains.

But Theo just talks over him. “You are _not going with me_. No one is, but _especially_ you,” Theo snaps, but the second he finishes talking Nolan can hear him suck in a sharp breath, like he’d surprised himself; like he hadn’t meant to say that last part.

There’s a few seconds of loaded silence, then: “What the fuck does _that_ mean?” Liam asks, and the seeming-flatness of his tone is a warning in and of itself.

Nolan slits his eyes open just in time to see Theo’s jaw clench. “I know,” he starts to say, and Nolan winces at the tightly-controlled timbre to his voice, “that you and Scott seem to have a _really convenient_ bout of short-term memory loss when it comes to who I am, and what I’ve done, but no one _else_ does.”

 _What?_ Nolan thinks.

“What?” Liam says. “What the hell does th—”

“Scott’s isn’t the only pack I’ve screwed over!” Theo snaps, and there’s something frayed about the way he says it, like the tight weave of his control is coming unraveled. “And those other packs—whose _territory_ I’m going to need to wander into— _haven’t_ forgotten that!”

Liam doesn’t say anything for a long, _long_ few seconds, and then he says, “And you’re arguing that that’s a _reason_ that you should go alone? Are you _insane?_ ” His voice rises significantly on the last word.

“You’re not going with me!” Theo yells, and he _is_ yelling now.

“You’re not going alone!” Liam snarls back.

Nolan can hear them both breathing, fast and harsh, and he realizes with a jolt of adrenaline that they must have shifted, at least partially. He eases his eyes open to check, helplessly curious, and sees the flare of both of their eyes, the sharp points of their fangs visible behind their open, half-snarled lips.

But as he watches Theo takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes, and when he opens them back up, the shift is gone and his shoulders are still. “That’s not up to you, is it?” He says, low and calm; too calm.

Liam’s eyes are still golden. “We’ll see about that,” he hisses out through his still-shifted fangs, and as Nolan watches—though he squeezes his eyes quickly shut as Liam passes him—Liam goes storming towards the door, and out of Theo’s apartment. He rolls the door back shut hard enough after himself that it bounces against the jamb and ricochets open again, and only slowly, _slowly_ rolls itself finally back shut.

Nolan keeps his eyes closed, but it turns out to be a useless effort. “I know you’re awake,” Theo says tonelessly.

Grimacing, Nolan eases his eyes open, and sits up. The blanket that someone—Theo, probably—had thrown over him falls down from his shoulders to pool in his lap. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

Theo just exhales out roughly, and then shrugs. As casual a gesture as it was probably meant to be, it comes off rough and jerkily; more like Theo shaking the last of the shifted tension out of his limbs. He turns back for the table, and picks up his pen again. But he doesn’t start writing, and his back—the long expanse of it visible in the low light of the floor lamp Theo had clicked on at some point, the outline of his arms and shoulders silvered by the moonlight filtering in through the floor-to-ceiling windows—stays tense.

“You’re doing it again,” he suddenly says; Nolan jumps.

“What?” Nolan wonders, though his fingers twist together in the blanket in his lap even as he says it.

Theo lets out a rough, frustrated noise and spins around to put his back to the table. “Just spit it out already, Nolan,” he orders.

His fingers dip into his right pocket, and pull out the object—the _bone_ —that he seems to keep with him at all times, now. _Did you know Josh Diaz?_ Nolan hears in his head as he stares at the smooth white surface of it, and then he swallows, and looks back down at his nervously fidgeting fingers.

“You and Liam,” he ventures eventually, and immediately hears Theo’s sharp intake of breath. “You sure you’re…” He trails off, and swallows again, and then says, more loudly; more strongly: “Are you doing all this to protect him, or to punish yourself?”

When he finally manages to drag his gaze up to Theo’s, Theo is staring back at him. The bone in his fingers—one of _Josh’s_ bones?—stills. But after a few seconds the stunned look on Theo’s face fades, replaced by a tight, clenched-jaw expression.

“Says the guy hiding out in my apartment while wearing his murderous dead ex-boyfriend’s hoodie,” he says, more than a little venomously.

Nolan flinches, bodily and _hard_ , and Theo looks away, though he doesn’t apologize.

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he finally says, more quietly. He shoves off the table, and starts heading for the stairs up to the loft. “Stay if you want. I’m going to bed.”

There’s no bedroom door to slam, but Nolan still flinches when he hears the upstairs bathroom door _crack_ closed with more than a little additional force. He stays where he is for a few long seconds, and then he gets up, and locks Theo’s front door, and sits back down on the couch.

He still has the sleeves of Gabe’s hoodie pulled down over his hands. He twists his fingers around the inside of them, and then he lets himself flop back down sideways onto the cushions, and squeezes his eyes closed.

_**Theo** _

“Theo,” Argent greets dryly as he pulls open the McCall-Argent front door. “What a coincidence—Melissa and Scott just stepped out.”

He steps away from the door but leaves it open as he heads back inside the condo; Theo catches it as it starts to swing back shut and hurries through it.

“You have to convince him to change his mind,” he says, twisting sideways to let the door finish closing behind himself.

“No,” Argent disagrees simply.

He continues walking away without pausing, circling around the back of the living room couch and heading into the kitchen. Theo makes a frustrated noise and darts after him. When he makes it through the doorway he sees Argent in front of the sink, the water running and a pile of dirty dishes off to one side, the dishwasher open on the opposite.

“Argent!” Theo insists.

“ _No_ , Theo,” Argent repeats, the dryness covering his tone flaking away to reveal the steel underneath. “It’s too risky.”

“No, it _isn’t_ ,” Theo denies. “Not for me, not with—”

“Not for _you?_ ” Argent interrupts incredulously. He twists around to give Theo an equally-incredulous look. “What makes you so—”

“Why do you think the Dread Doctors kept me alive!” Theo shouts, all his frustration and— _something else_ cracking open in his chest; he can feel Josh’s fang like a rock, like an anchor, weighing down his pocket. He spreads his arms wide; putting himself on display for Argent’s sudden stunned look. “Every other failed chimera they killed, _except me_. Why do you think that was?”

Argent doesn’t reply, just keeps staring at him.

“I was made for this kind of work, Argent. _Literally_ ,” Theo insists, more than a little hoarsely.

The line of Argent’s mouth tightens. “Maybe so,” he finally allows, and turns back to the sink as he reaches forward to turn the still-streaming faucet off. He starts scrubbing at a pan with a worn sponge. “But Scott isn’t one of the Dread Doctors, and we can get the information we need another way.”

“Yeah?” Theo shoots back. “Can we? Because from what I can tell, our progress has stalled. There are too many missing people in too many missing towns, and paperwork only gets us so far. We need— _Scott_ needs,” he corrects, intuition flaring and working his tongue, “on-the-ground intelligence, which he can only _get_ from someone going and being _on the ground_.”

Argent makes a harsh noise and throws down the pan and sponge with a clatter, and finally turns around to face Theo head-on. “And that someone has to be _you?_ _Alone?_ ”

“Well,” Theo says, nastily, “someone has to clean up your mess.”

Argent’s expression goes narrow, and dangerous. “Excuse me?”

Theo smirks, mean and sharp-mouthed. “Up until six months ago, Monroe was an enthusiastic amateur, and she would have _stayed that way_ , if it weren’t for your father.” Theo tilts his head mock-thoughtfully. “And remind me who it was that let Gerard escape Beacon Hills after the Beast?”

“You sure you want to be bringing up the Beast, Theo?” Argent wonders, tone gone low and saturated with more than a little warning.

“What?” Theo asks, falsely sweet. “Still bitter about how easy it was for me to tear Scott and the rest of the pack apart?”

Argent stares at him for a few seconds longer, the seconds dragging and Theo having to forcefully keep the muscles between his shoulders from winching tight—has to keep the smirk on his face—but then all at once Argent laughs, low and under his breath, and shakes his head. “Nice try,” he acknowledges, sounding genuinely impressed, and turns back to the sink.

 _Damn it_ , Theo silently swears, and grits his teeth. “Scott needs the information I can get by going, Argent. You know he does.”

“You can stop constantly referring to Scott,” Argent replies mildly, the sponge in his hand rasping against the pan. “I know what you’re trying to do, and that’s not going to work either.”

“Argent,” Theo tries, but Argent cuts him off.

“He already said no, Theo, and he isn’t going to change his mind. Not when it means putting you in a position where the _best case_ scenario is that Monroe just _captures_ you, rather than kills you,” he says. “And that’s completely setting _aside_ the risks of what the other packs might do to you if they find you in their territories.”

He glances back at Theo, and smirks at the tight look Theo can feel taking over his own face.

“You didn’t really think you were the only person McPherson warned, did you?” He asks, tone deliberately patronizing.

“I can handle the other packs,” Theo finally replies, though he can feel the way adrenaline starts to unfurl tendrils out from the central line of his spine, reaching and reaching out through his veins: _I’d recommend you stay out of Chemult_ , McPherson had said. _If Quentin gets ahold of you, he’s going to rip you apart._

Argent scoffs again. “You can handle Monroe. You can handle the other packs. Anything you can’t handle, Theo?”

“Yeah,” Theo snaps back instantly. “Sitting here with the rest of you with our thumbs up our collective asses while Monroe keeps racking up a body count.” The line of Argent’s mouth tightens, his admittedly-sharp amusement disappearing from his face. Theo grits his teeth, and presses his advantage. “What was the last estimate? A dozen? And that’s only counting the _dead_ , not the people she’s kidnapped and turned into werewolves against their will.”

Argent glances away, his jaw working. Finally he sets down the pan and sponge he’d still been holding, and reaches for a dish towel to dry his hands as he turns around, and leans back against the counter. “So we send you with Derek, or Parrish. Hell, we send you with _both_ of—”

“ _No_ ,” Theo interrupts. “Too many people show up looking for her, and it’ll be just like Weaverville. She’ll pack up shop and move, and we’ll have to start all over again.” Theo feels his patience starting to fray. “Argent, c’mon. You _know_ all this.”

Argent bites off a harsh noise, and throws the towel to the side. “What I _don’t know_ ,” he says, side-stepping Theo’s point, “is what your angle is.”

“My angle,” Theo repeats blankly, though with an uncomfortable ball of tension starting to twist itself tight at the base of his spine.

“Yeah, _your angle_ ,” Argent repeats forcefully. “What are you hoping to get out of all this?” He narrows his eyes, searching Theo’s face. “No one’s asking you to do this. The _opposite_ , in fact. And you’re not just volunteering, you’re _insisting_.”

Theo grits his teeth. “And you’re _complaining_ about that? You need _someone_ to go. Why _not_ me?”

But Argent just says, quiet and firm, “That’s not what I asked.”

Biting off his own harsh noise, Theo jerks his gaze to the side, and then looks back. “I’m the one with the right skill set. I’m the _only_ one with the right skill set. Sending anyone else would be _idiotic_ , you’d be _gift-wrapping_ them for Monroe—”

“Theo,” Argent interrupts calmly. “That’s not what I asked.”

Theo stares at him, but Argent doesn’t waver. Theo feels his expression start to crumple—feels that tight ball of _something_ at the base of spine solidify, and come rushing up, out of his throat. “God _damn_ it, Argent!” He shouts, his voice cracking halfway through. “What do you want me to say? What _can_ I say that you’d believe? I can do this. Let me—let me _do_ this.”

He’s pleading by the end; he can’t help himself. He swallows, and clamps his jaw shut. His fingers are shaking; he presses them against the outside of his pocket to feel Josh’s fang, and can’t stop his eyes from squeezing shut as he tries to concentrate on breathing. Just breathing.

But his eyes pop right back open when Argent suddenly says, “I’ll talk to Scott.”

“What?” Theo can’t help but breathe, thrown.

“I’ll talk to Scott,” Argent repeats. His expression stays neutral and Theo can’t get his senses to cooperate long enough to check his pulse, or scent. “No guarantees, but…”

“Okay,” Theo manages to agree after a few seconds, more than a little blankly, surprise and the strange hollow feeling left behind in his chest scattering his thoughts. “Okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**ii. the valley**

* * *

_**Nolan** _

Nolan’s only under the rough, woolen blanket in the back of Theo’s truck for maybe ten minutes, all told, before it gets yanked off of him.

He blinks up at Theo in the early morning sunlight, Theo leaned over the side of his truck bed and with the blanket still held in one hand. “You can’t seriously,” he says, “have been expecting that to work.”

Nolan grimaces, and then shrugs. “I thought maybe you’d be too distracted to notice.”

Theo gives him an incredulous look. “I would have had to have recently suffered a head injury.”

Nolan makes a face. “Considering you’re about to wander into _enemy territory_ for like a week by yourself…” He mutters.

Theo’s eyebrows shoot up at Nolan’s prickly reply, and then his expression goes dry, and more than a little irritated. “Out,” he orders, and leaves the blanket crumpled in the middle of the truck bed as he shoves off the side and reaches down for something.

Nolan scrambles over and then leans over the side of the truck in time to see Theo pick up a duffel bag, and yank open his truck’s back door to toss it inside. “Liam’s right, you know. This is probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

Theo’s jaw just clenches. “It really isn’t.”

Nolan’s mind flashes to the bone Theo seems to keep on him at all times now—the bone that Nolan is pretty sure is one of Josh’s—and he winces. Swallowing, he swings a leg over the side of the truck bed and then almost immediately has to be caught by the arm by Theo as he slips, and starts to fall. Theo rolls his eyes but makes sure that Nolan is steady on his feet before releasing him, and then he goes back to leaning into his backseat as he—Nolan going up on his toes to see—unzips his duffel bag and starts rooting around in it, apparently double-checking that he has the supplies he needs.

“Look, Theo,” Nolan starts to say, intending to finish it with something like, _I know you’re afraid of letting anyone else go with you in case they get hurt, but I could—_ , but Theo’s head suddenly snaps up, and out towards the main entrance into the parking lot of Derek’s building.

“Shit,” he murmurs, and straightens up with a rough sigh.

Nolan glances towards the entrance, too, and just in time to see Liam’s beat-up old SUV come roaring through it, Liam and Scott clearly visible through the windshield and just as clearly heatedly arguing. Nolan looks back at Theo.

“ _You_ couldn’t have seriously expected that _this_ wasn’t going to happen,” he points out, and Theo just glares at him.

Liam drives up right next to Theo’s truck and just _stops_ , heedless of the way that he’s not only not in a parking spot, but is in the middle of the lane between the parked cars. He throws open his door—Nolan can hear Scott yelling his name, _Liam!_ —but Liam doesn’t even slow, just slams his door right back shut.

“You’re not going,” he says as he storms up to Theo, flat like a statement and just as immovable. “I don’t care what you say, or Argent says, or the _True Alpha_ —” the way he says _true alpha_ is brutal; Nolan winces right along with Scott, who’d scrambled out of the car after Liam, “—says. You’re _not going_.”

“Liam, enough,” Theo just sighs. “The decision’s been made. I’ll be fine.”

“Liam—” Scott tries.

“No,” Liam cuts him off, whirling around to point a vicious finger in Scott’s face. “No, you shut up. I’m done listening to you. You _promised me_ you wouldn’t let him go.”

“Liam, people are dying,” Scott counters quietly. “Shohreh’s pack lost another member. They found the body _yesterday_.”

Liam just flings an arm out to point towards Theo. “So he gets to be the next dead body instead,” he all but yells, “and _I’m_ the one acting crazy for having a problem with it?”

Theo knocks Liam’s arm away. “You’re being dramatic,” he snaps. “That’s not—”

Except he has to cut off with a startled noise as Liam whirls back around to face him and _shoves_ him all in one too-fast, almost _blurred_ motion. _Werewolf speed_ , Nolan thinks. Supernatural speed. He feels his pulse kick up, and then again, as Theo’s back hits the side of his truck with an audible _thump_.

“Liam!” Scott yells, and with something in his voice that makes the muscles between Nolan’s shoulders winch tight, but neither Liam nor Theo pay him any attention.

“I am _not_ being dramatic,” Liam hisses, right up in Theo’s face and with his hands fisted in Theo’s collar, the rest of his body pinning Theo’s to the truck. “Monroe is going to _kill you_ , and if she doesn’t do that, she’s going to turn you into one of her attack dogs. And if _she_ doesn’t do _that_ , one of those packs that you oh-so-helpfully pointed out that you _screwed over_ will kill you!”

Theo’s expression twists, and then all at once he shoves himself off of his truck, propelling himself forward into Liam and knocking Liam back. Nolan’s almost expecting him to take a swing at Liam—or for Liam to take a swing at him—except what Theo _does_ , is twist himself around so that he’s out from in front of Liam’s body, and grabs Liam’s arm. He starts dragging him off to the side, away from Scott and Nolan.

Except Liam just tries to yank out of Theo’s grip. But Theo just—just _snarls_ , loud and with flared eyes, and a fanged mouth—Nolan finds himself unconsciously stepping back, his breath freezing in his chest—and tightens his fingers around Liam’s arm; Nolan can see the whiteness of his knuckles.

“Fucking _come here_ ,” he orders, and keeps dragging Liam away.

Beside Nolan, Scott takes a conflicted half-step forward, his eyes on Theo’s and Liam’s retreating backs. Nolan jumps at the sudden movement, and Scott jumps in turn. He blinks and then looks over, like he’s surprised to see Nolan at all.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh, Nolan. Hi.”

“Hi,” Nolan returns, just as inanely.

Scott looks back towards Liam and Theo, who Nolan can still hear—indistinctly, but there—arguing, and who Scott can probably hear perfectly. He grimaces. “Sorry. You’re not…really seeing us at our best, here.”

Nolan shrugs and looks away, but. But there’s a question burning at him, harsh and bubbling away in the center of his chest like acid, and he only lasts a few more seconds—a few more seconds of hearing the furious rise-and-fall of Liam and Theo verbally tearing strips off of each other—of swallowing it down before it bursts out of him.

“Do you really need him to go?” He asks, though it’s really teetering more on the edge of being a demand.

Scott looks at him in surprise. He stares at Nolan for a few dragging, tense seconds, and then he closes his eyes, and exhales out low and rough under his breath, and glances back towards Liam and Theo.

“We do,” he admits. “ _I_ do,” he corrects almost immediately, and a little harshly, though Nolan doesn’t think the tone is directed at _him_. “People really are dying—a _lot_ of people—and our current methods for trying to find Monroe, and stop her, they’re not…they’re not working.”

Scott sighs, and brings his hands up to scrub roughly over his face. Nolan watches him a little longer, and then drops his gaze to the ground. _People are dying—a_ lot _of people—are dying_. Those hadn’t been Theo’s _exact_ words, but they’re close enough.

“But,” Scott suddenly adds, and Nolan jumps, and jerks to look up at him. Scott winces. “But that’s not why I agreed to let him go.”

Nolan stares. “I don’t,” he starts to say, completely thrown. “Then why…?”

Scott looks away from him, his gaze dragging back to Theo. To Theo’s back, half-turned to Nolan and Scott as he keeps arguing with Liam. Scott’s jaw clenches.

“He thinks he needs to,” Scott finally explains quietly. He gives Nolan a sideways look, his mouth twisted in a grimace. “Theo’s convinced himself that he needs to do this.”

Nolan opens his mouth to reply. He doesn’t know what he’s going to _say_ , exactly, but it winds up not mattering; Liam suddenly yells, “God, just— _fuck_ you,” and storms away from Theo, leaving Theo standing, alone, by some random dark-colored sedan.

“Liam,” Scott tries as Liam approaches, but Liam just snarls, “Fuck _you_ , too,” and yanks open the driver’s side door of his SUV, and climbs inside. He starts it seconds later, and has pulled out, and roared away from Scott and Nolan and Theo—who’d started slowly walking back towards them—seconds after that.

“Theo,” Scott says quietly, but Theo just shakes his head.

“Leave it, Scott,” he orders, and then more quietly: “Please.”

Scott nods, reluctantly. Theo works his jaw, and then leans back over to shut the still-open back door of his truck.

“I should get going,” he says tiredly. “I want to get into town during the commuter rush.”

“Okay,” Scott agrees, then: “You know the plan, right? Check-ins every two hours, and—”

“I know the plan,” Theo interrupts, not exactly unkindly. He gives Scott a smile that’s more than a little wobbly. “I came _up_ with most of the plan,” he reminds Scott, who grins good-naturedly.

Theo sucks in a deep breath—Nolan gets the sense he doesn’t fully realize he’s doing it—and then presses his fingers against the outside of his right pants’ pocket. _Josh’s bone_ , Nolan thinks, with a rock-solid amount of certainty. And then he jerks—looking up from where his eyes had reflexively drifted to follow Theo’s fingers—as Theo suddenly focuses on him.

“No midnight wanderings,” he orders, and Nolan cracks a shaky grin. “You’ve got a key,” he adds, “so just—don’t do anything stupid.”

“Sure,” Nolan agrees. He feels his fingers—which he’d tucked in his pockets at some point—clench into tight fists. “I mean, I’ll do my best, anyway.”

Theo laughs a little, quiet and under his breath. He and Scott spend another half-minute or so talking, and then Theo nods, and flicks Nolan and Scott a quick wave as he circles around his truck. Scott steps out from behind it—and pulls Nolan with him, his fingers gentle in the back of Nolan’s collar—as Theo’s engine roars to life so that Theo can reverse out of the spot, and then he spends a few seconds staring after Theo’s fading headlights.

“Well,” Scott says, and inhales a long, deep breath. “Okay, then,” he exhales that same breath back out, and looks at Nolan. “Do you need a ride somewhere? I can take you home, or—” he stops, grimacing at himself as he hurries to correct, “—or wherever. The school, maybe.”

Nolan just smiles, shaky but helplessly amused. “I think _I_ am going to have to take _you_ somewhere,” he points out, and his grin cracks wide open at Scott’s confused frown. “Your ride took off, after all.”

Scott’s frown melts into a poleaxed expression, and he jerks to look blankly up and around at the parking lot as he seemingly realizes, for the first time, one of the collateral consequences of Liam driving off without him.

“Well, shit,” he says, sounding almost stumped; Nolan can’t help snorting a laugh. Scott just grins. “Hey, Nolan. Think I can get a ride?”

“Yeah,” Nolan agrees, grinning back. He slips his keys out of his pocket. “Yeah, I think you can.”

_**Theo** _

Looking back, Theo realizes he’d started hearing what he hears almost a full minute before he really lets himself acknowledge it, but it’s such a simple _impossibility_ that he writes it off.

But.

“What the _hell_ ,” he murmurs after another ten seconds or so pass, letting the file in his hand drop down into his lap, his body sprawled out on the motel room’s cheap bedspread as he looks up, and out, towards the door. _No fucking way_ , he thinks, but he climbs to his feet regardless.

He rips open the door a few seconds later, keycard in hand, and steps out onto the balcony overlooking the parking lot. Once there he freezes, his entire body just one long pillar of stunned disbelief.

“Um,” Nolan greets, stood between Theo’s truck and his crossover and with one hand rising to scratch awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I, um. I’m really glad you came out, actually. I had no idea what room you were in.”

Theo stares at him a little longer, his _stunned_ disbelief starting to transmute into _furious_ disbelief, and then he hisses out, loud enough to be heard but not much louder, “Get _up_ here. _Right now_.”

Nolan flinches but does as instructed, scurrying towards the stairs up to the motel’s second floor. Theo steps back so that he can swipe his keycard over his door and push it open, and then he jams his foot between it and the jamb and waits impatiently—practically vibrating with the force of it—for Nolan to get close enough. Nolan starts to slow as he approaches, but Theo just reaches out and gets a fistful of his shirt, and _yanks_ him forward before throwing him sideways, through the door that Theo simultaneously shoulders open, and into the room. He follows Nolan inside and lets the door slam shut behind him.

Nolan staggers right into the armchair tucked into the corner of the room, one of his hips colliding with the chair’s side. “Ow,” he mutters, and rubs at it as he straightens up, and turns back around to face Theo. Then he freezes, mid-rub. “Um.”

“What the fuck,” Theo asks, as calmly as he can given that his fangs are prickling at his gums, “are you _doing_ here?”

“I, um,” Nolan starts, stammering it out. He twists around to slide his phone out of his pocket. “I tracked you?” He answers, and holds out his unlocked phone.

Theo snatches it away from him, and then brings it back up so that he can look at the screen. It shows a map, with a steadily blinking dot centered right on top of the motel. _Find My Device_ , the banner across the top declares. Theo feels his jaw tighten.

“My, um. My tablet is in the back of your truck,” Nolan finishes, his fingers starting to twist uncertainly together in front of his chest.

 _So that’s what that was this morning_ , some calm corner of Theo’s brain thinks, but the _rest_ of it tightens his fingers around Nolan’s phone and snaps, “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Well, I was thinking about it, you know, and I just thought…It just seemed like…” Nolan starts to ramble, his eyes darting around the room but never coming anywhere _near_ Theo’s face. “I know what you said to Argent and Scott and Liam about…But I just, you know—”

“ _Nolan!_ ” Theo interrupts sharply; Nolan flinches.

“Coming alone was stupid and you shouldn’t have done it,” he argues, and all in such a tangled rush that Theo doesn’t actually understand him at first; has to blink, and replay Nolan’s words in his head before he finally get it. And then:

“ _Excuse_ me?” Theo replies, low and furious. He can feel his eyes flaring. He can’t stop it from happening.

Nolan quails a little at his tone, and probably at the harsh glow of his eyes, but he swallows, and straightens back up. “I know what you told Argent and Scott and Liam,” he says, his voice more than a little shaky, “and you probably even meant it, but I don’t think that’s why you convinced them to let you come and I—”

“I don’t need you psychoanalyzing me!” Theo interrupts, and _now_ he’s yelling. He also throws Nolan’s phone _hard_ to the side; it collides with the pillows on one of the room’s beds, and falls silently down onto the mattress. Nolan cowers back, some, his eyes going wide.

Theo stares at him, his shoulders heaving, and then he takes a deep breath, and then another—his eyes slipping closed—and grabs at the fraying ends of his control. He pulls them back together, and opens his eyes back up. Nolan is staring at him, but he’s doing it through eyes hidden by his half-ducked brow, his head still tilted towards the floor.

“Setting aside,” Theo starts, once more over-calm, “your unnecessary jaunt into being an incredibly unqualified _therapist_ , how in the _hell_ did you think that _you_ , of all people, following me here, was going to help!” He’s yelling again by the end of it; he can’t help it.

Nolan winces, but he also replies fast. Too fast, really; he’d clearly practiced _this_ part of his speech, at least. “I—I mean, I know I’m not a werewolf or a werecoyote or a _chimera_ , or—or anything,” he stammers, shooting for airy but missing the mark, “but I can, y’know, I can dial a _mean_ phone number.” He tries a cheeky grin, but it drops right off his face at whatever he sees on Theo’s.

Theo doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t know how to respond to _any_ of this. “You’re unbelievable,” he tells Nolan flatly. “Do you even realize what you’ve _done?_ What if you get _captured?_ What were you expecting Scott and the others to _do?_ ”

If Theo thought his accusations would make Nolan flinch again, or keep his eyes glued guiltily to the floor, he’s wrong. Nolan’s jaw goes tight, and he looks up to look Theo dead in the eye, the line of his mouth going mulish.

“I don’t know,” he says quietly, but just as flatly as Theo had. “The same thing you were expecting them to do if _you_ got captured, I guess.”

Theo recoils, stunned. Nolan just keeps glaring right back at him. Theo tightens his own jaw, and rips his gaze away, but in doing so he gets a good look at the clock sat on the nightstand between the two beds. _Shit_ , he thinks.

“I have to check in with Scott and Argent,” he tells Nolan tightly. “Do you think you can manage to fucking _stay put_ long enough for me to do that?”

Nolan works his jaw, and then he makes a big show of stepping around the chair he’d run into earlier, and dropping down into it. Theo glares at him a little longer, Nolan glaring right back as his arms rise to cross over his chest, and then he starts storming towards the bathroom. He swipes his own phone off the bed he’d been stretched out on before as he goes.

Argent answers on the second ring, just as Theo is closing the bathroom door behind himself. “Hey, Theo.”

Theo doesn’t return the greeting. “Tell me you’re with Scott.”

Argent’s eyebrows shoot up; Theo doesn’t need to be able to see him to know it. “Give me a second,” he says, and then Theo hears a muffled _Scott, get over here_. Another few seconds pass, and then Argent comes back on the line. “Alright, Scott’s here and you’re on speaker.”

Theo opens his mouth to start talking—though christ knows what he’s going to say—but Scott cuts in before he can. “Hey, look. I don’t think there’s any cause to panic yet, but I wanted to let you know—Liam said Nolan wasn’t in school today. He answered when we called and said everything is fine, but I just wanted you to—”

“I know where he is,” Theo interrupts.

There’s a few seconds of stunned silence, and then Scott ventures, “Oh, did he—did he tell you, or…?”

“No,” Theo denies. “He _showed up at my motel_.”

“ _What?_ ” Both Scott and Argent reply, near-simultaneously.

“He tracked me,” Theo continues. He puts his phone on speaker and then sets it down, and braces his arms wide on the counter. “Hid his tablet in my truck and followed me here. He’s out in the main room right now.”

Argent laughs, low and disbelieving. “No kidding,” he murmurs, sounding impressed. “Clever.”

“Did he say why?” Scott wonders.

“Apparently,” Theo answers tightly, “he objected to my lack of backup.”

A few seconds of silence crawl past. “He’s not exactly wrong,” Scott points out finally, though with something to his tone like a preemptive wince.

Theo stares in disbelief at the dim screen of his phone; at the slowly ticking-up seconds of the call. “And you think _Nolan_ makes for good backup?” Nolan can probably hear the conversation, he realizes; can probably hear the incredulity in Theo’s voice. Theo abruptly decides he doesn’t care.

Scott doesn’t answer. Instead, after a telling beat of silence he asks, “Are you going to send him back?”

“I can’t,” Theo answers immediately, realizing the full truth of what he’s saying even as he’s saying it. “Even if I had any confidence whatsoever that he’d actually _go_ , there’s too big of a risk that he was seen coming into town. And even if he _wasn’t_ , sending him back _out_ alone just increases the odds that he will be.”

There’s another few seconds of silence; Scott looking to Argent for his thoughts, Theo bets. “We can send someone to come get him, then,” Scott offers finally.

This time it’s Argent who answers. “We can’t do that, either,” he disagrees quietly. “We’d risk tipping Monroe and her people off, just like we were worried about in sending anyone with Theo originally.”

Scott blows out a long, frustrated breath; Theo can hear it even though Scott’s several feet away from the phone. “What do we do, then?”

“The same thing we were already doing,” Theo answers, and more than a little tiredly; he drops down to his elbows and slides them in so that he can drop his face into his hands. “The same thing _I_ was already doing. I just have to do it _with_ him, now.”

“We could call this off,” Scott points out tentatively, and after a few hesitant seconds. “You could both come back.”

Theo makes himself ignore his first, knee-jerk reaction to refuse, to snap _no, absolutely not_ , and forces himself to really _think_. To _consider_. He tilts his head sideways, eyes on the door leading out to the main area of the motel room. Nolan’s heartbeat is still pounding steadily away in the corner of the room, but Theo can hear the quiet, nearly-inaudible _scrape-scrape_ of Nolan scratching his fingernails nervously over each other. He hadn’t shown up wearing Gabe’s hoodie, but Theo is positive— _positive_ —that it’s in his car; that it’s somewhere close by.

“No,” Theo says slowly. “We need the information. I can get it, and,” he hesitates, but; he shifts, just enough that he can press his right leg against the bathroom counter; so he can drive the flat press of Josh’s fang against his flesh, “and Nolan can help me.”

He stays on the phone with Scott and Argent for a few more minutes, working out adjustments to their original plan to take into account Nolan’s unceremoniously forcing his way into it. Even after he hangs up he spends another minute or so with his hands braced on the counter, just breathing. Finally he shoves off of it, and opens the door, though he doesn’t walk though it, just crosses his arms and leans against the jamb. Nolan looks up at him, his expression such a mix of determinedly mutinous and more than a little terrified—and with enough guilt—that Theo feels the last of his anger sputter and die.

“This is probably the stupidest thing _you’ve_ ever done,” Theo comments; echoing Nolan’s own words from this morning.

Nolan’s expression flickers with surprise, and then it tightens, some. “It really isn’t,” he returns; echoing _Theo’s_ response. Theo studies him for a little while longer, and then sighs.

“What were you _thinking_ , Nolan? Really?” He presses.

Nolan winces, his eyes dropping to the floor. “I _told_ you, you coming here alone was—”

“That’s not the reason,” Theo interrupts, then: “That’s not the _only_ reason,” he amends.

Nolan’s head jerks up to stare back at Theo, and then he swallows, and looks back down. The silence drags, and for long enough that Theo opens his mouth to push, to demand an answer, but Nolan beats him to it.

“You’re not the only one who has things you need to make up for,” he finally says, and quietly enough that he’s practically whispering it.

He looks back up at Theo, after. Theo looks back at him. Finally he sucks in a deep breath, and exhales it out slowly.

“Second bed is yours,” he tells Nolan, and can _see_ the surprise dawning over Nolan’s face. “If you need something out of your car, tell me now so that we can go get it—you’re not leaving my _sight_ until we’re back in Beacon Hills, do you understand me?”

Nolan keeps right on staring at him, and then he nods, frantically and all at once like he’s afraid if he doesn’t do it fast enough Theo might change his mind. “I understand,” he says. “I—I understand.”

_**Nolan** _

Nolan jolts awake the next morning because Theo drops a balled-up towel on top of his head.

“Get up and get ready,” he orders over the sound of Nolan sputtering and clumsily pawing the towel away from his face. “We’re going to breakfast.”

“Oh,” Nolan says, pausing, towel in hand. “Oh, no. That’s okay. I’m not—I’m not hungry.” That’s a lie, actually; he’s _starving_ , but that seems—unwise to bring up, given the circumstances.

Theo just eyes him amusedly. “That’s not actually the point,” he replies, mid-rub of a towel over his own wet hair.

“Oh,” Nolan answers, coloring. “Oh, right.” He scrambles out of bed.

The diner Theo takes them to is on the edge of town, not far from the entrances to two of the state’s main highways. Nolan trails Theo through the doors—and close enough that at one point Theo just stops, and calmly reaches back to grab Nolan’s arm and force Nolan in front of himself, instead—his eyes wide as he glances around. There’s adrenaline singing in his blood, suddenly—near-drowning out the easy back-and-forth Theo starts with the host as she leads them to a table—as he realizes, hours too late, a _day_ too late, what exactly his being here could mean.

 _What’re you working on, Nolan?_ Rossler had asked, smarmy and low and leaning over Nolan with his hands braced on the table on either side of Nolan’s chest, caging Nolan in. He’d leaned in low enough, in fact, that his chest had been brushing Nolan’s back, Nolan’s hunched-in shoulders that had only hunched further as Nolan had frozen, his fingers going white-knuckled around his pencil.

He jolts back to the present as their host stops in front of a table, and only avoids running directly into Theo’s back because Theo puts out an elbow, and Nolan runs directly into _that_ , instead. He _oofs_ and rebounds a few steps, and then blushes furiously.

“Forgive him,” Theo says breezily to the curious-eyed host. “He hasn’t had his coffee yet.”

“How about I go get you a pot, then,” the host offers with a smile, and Theo thanks her with an equally-wide, charming grin.

He also slides into one of the booth seats immediately afterwards, and looks pointedly at Nolan until Nolan jolts again and hurries into the other. “What’s wrong with you?” Theo asks, not exactly unkindly, but Nolan still just blushes again and grabs for one of the menus.

“Nothing,” he mutters as he opens it up, and hides his face behind it.

 _Homework, Nolan, really?_ Rossler had laughed, mean. He’d been speaking it directly into Nolan’s ear, at that point; Nolan had tried—had really _tried_ —to suppress his shiver at the way Rossler’s breath had skated over his skin, but he couldn’t. Behind them, Preston had laughed, too, and Rossler had _grinned_.

Theo doesn’t push it. Instead he picks up a conversation with the host as she returns, a pot of coffee in one hand and two mugs dangling from the fingers of her other. She laughs at something Theo says as she’s setting the mugs down and pouring them both cups, and Nolan flinches, and huddles a little further down in his seat, the words of the menu in front of him little more than one massive blur.

And then Theo kicks him under the table. “Thank you,” Theo is saying, and smiling at the host, his whole posture easy and welcoming and giving no indication that he’d just put a bruise in the middle of one of Nolan’s shins.

“Right, sorry. Th-thank you,” Nolan stammers. He’d dropped his menu with a surprised jerk when Theo had kicked him, and he reaches quickly for his now-filled coffee cup instead; he’s not sure if the host can see his fingers trembling, but he’s positive that Theo does.

“Don’t worry,” the host confides, and smiles at him when Nolan looks reflexively over. “I’m not a morning person, either.”

Nolan manages a shaky smile back. The host gives him one last, tiny grin and then turns back to Theo as she says _your server will be with you shortly_ and heads back to the host stand. Theo thanks her one last time and watches her go, and then he turns back to Nolan, his expression sharpening.

“Nolan,” he says. Just that; just his name.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Nolan insists, but even as he says it his eyes are squeezing helplessly shut, and his fingers are going tight, _tight_ around his coffee mug.

That day at Gerard’s warehouse Rossler had been opening his mouth to say something else—Nolan had felt Rossler’s lips brush his ear—when he’d suddenly stiffened, and turned his head. _Gabe_ , he’d greeted, but his tone had gone flat, and his fingers—still resting on the table on either side of Nolan’s chest—had tightened.

“Hey,” Theo’s voice cuts through his thoughts—through his _memory_ —and then Nolan jumps when he feels Theo’s hand on his wrist. But in jumping the way that he did, he winds up slopping coffee over the side of his mug, covering both his and Theo’s hands with it.

“Shit, sorry,” Nolan swears, and tries to jerk away—both from the pain and from the embarrassment—but Theo just tightens his fingers around Nolan’s and yanks his hand back. Black veins start almost immediately crawling up his skin, too; Nolan freezes and stares in fascination as the same dark gray veins rise under his own skin, and the low, dull throb of his burned fingers fades.

Finally the lines of black disappear, and Nolan darts a look up at Theo. Theo looks back, and doesn’t let go of his hand. “Nolan,” he repeats, more quietly.

 _Nolan_ , Gabe had called as he’d walked up; Nolan had been able to see the tight expression on his face from underneath Rossler’s braced arm. _You okay?_

 _He’s fine_ , Rossler had answered, still bent low over Nolan and caging him in. But his fingers were still white-knuckled around the table, and behind them, Nolan could hear Preston shifting; turning to face Gabe.

 _He’d probably be better_ , Gabe had replied stonily, _if you stepped_ away _from him_.

And after a few slow seconds, Rossler had.

“Do you—do you think Rossler, and—and Preston might be here?” Nolan blurts out helplessly, his fingers spasming around his mug, and underneath Theo’s still holding his fast.

Theo’s brow furrows. “The two hunters who showed up at the zoo when Liam and I were there?”

Nolan flinches. _You idiot_ , he swears at himself. “Yeah.”

Theo shrugs, and _now_ he takes his hand away, and sits back. “Rossler, probably. Preston, maybe.” He spends a few seconds ostensibly scanning the menu he’d spread out on the table in front of him. “Why?” He asks disinterestedly, but Nolan—all evidence to the contrary—isn’t that stupid.

Nolan bites his lip, but: “I had,” he starts, haltingly. “I had a few…run-ins, with them.”

 _You okay?_ Gabe had asked after Rossler and Preston had walked away with a sneered _see you later, Nolan_. He’d pulled Nolan up by the arm after, too, and his fingers had been _tight_ around Nolan’s bicep; tight enough to hurt, really.

 _I’m fine, I’m okay_ , Nolan had told him, but his voice had been shaking, and he’d shuddered when Gabe had slid his hand up from Nolan’s arm to the back of his neck, and clamped there, digging in.

Theo flicks him a quick, thoughtful glance. “Good to know,” he finally murmurs, and that’s it; their server walks up, and his expression melts back into its friendly grin, no hint of tension or his previous narrow-eyed focus left.

Nolan closes his eyes, and just tries to breathe.

_**Theo** _

It takes Nolan until their food is delivered to fully relax, the defensive hunch to his shoulders loosening slowly into an exhausted slump, and his rabbit-fast heartbeat gradually calming, calming, until Theo can shake loose the tension from his own limbs; from the leg he’d shifted to press against Nolan’s under the table, Nolan too wrapped up in his head—in _I had a few run-ins with them_ —to notice.

But he’d pressed back, consciously or not; but he’d shuddered out a low, rasping breath, and pressed back.

“What are we doing here, anyway?” He finally mutters, after he’s managed a shaky smile at their server as she drops off their plates and leaves again. He shifts to pick up his fork to start picking at his food.

Theo shifts in turn, and smoothly enough that Nolan—Theo’s attention fixed on the top of his downcast head—doesn’t notice Theo pulling his leg back. “You,” he answers, “are looking for people you recognize. I,” he adds, and picks up his coffee as he glances casually around the diner’s main floor, “am looking for people that don’t belong.”

Nolan shoots him a curious look, and then glances around the diner in turn, but after a few seconds—after he seemingly doesn't see anyone he recognizes—he shrugs and really starts digging into his food. Theo watches him for a few seconds, his nostrils flaring, but the more Nolan eats the more his scent starts to settle. After a half-minute or so, Theo looks away.

He also unlocks his tablet at one point, and spends a few minutes flicking through local news sites before he finds one that covers the town and a good chunk of the surrounding region. It doesn’t take him long to find an article with a perfectly garish headline; he selects it and then slides his tablet—the screen left unlocked—onto the edge of the table, tucked in right next to his coffee cup.

Nolan’s brow furrows as he looks at it, and his mouth starts to open—no doubt about to ask—when their server reappears; he snaps his jaw back closed again, and gives her a nervous, almost too-bright smile. She smiles gently back.

And then her eyes snag on Theo’s unlocked tablet.

“Oh,” she says, her cheerful expression disappearing from her face like someone had taken hold of the edge of it and _yanked_. “It’s just awful, isn’t it?”

“Hmm?” Theo hums, absently, fork in hand and with half a bite of food already in his mouth. He makes a big show of following her eyeline, and then swallowing hastily. _Eighth disappearance in three weeks baffles local authorities_ , the headline blares. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, it’s—we’re not from around here, but… Still.”

“Oh!” She exclaims, seizing on the opening like a lifeline. “Well, welcome, then. What are you boys in town for?”

Nolan freezes, his eyes going wide and more than a little panicked, but Theo just leans back a little further in his seat—easy, relaxed—and grins at him. “Just taking my little brother here to see colleges.”

Nolan’s brow furrows but his attention drags almost immediately back to their server when she laughs a little, seemingly delighted. “Congratulations!” She tells him. “That’s exciting. Any idea what you want to study?”

For a second Theo’s sure he’s going to have to jump in, deflect attention away from Nolan and his deer-in-the-headlights eyes and his fish-mouthed stare, but all at once Nolan flicks him a quick, impish look and replies, “Psychology.”

Theo feels his expression blank with surprise, and then crinkle right back up with more than a little amusement. The look he shoots back at Nolan is desert-dry, but his lips are twitching; he can’t stop it. Nolan grins, and then ducks his face to hide his smile behind his coffee cup.

“Well, good luck,” their server says. “At this rate,” she nods again to Theo’s unlocked tablet, and the article still displayed, “we’re all going to need some therapy.”

This time it’s Theo who seizes on the opening. “It seems so strange, the way the news talks about the disappearances. Does anyone have any theories?” He keeps his voice curious, light; more than a little naive. Their server’s next smile is more of a grimace.

“All kinds,” she answers. “But nothing concrete.” Her voice is more than a little sad; her scent sours, too.

“Oh,” Theo says, and makes sure to say it all in a rush; makes sure his expression is wide and open and embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound—”

“It’s okay,” she cuts him off. She gives him another shaky smile, and then visibly shakes the rest of herself, and straightens up. “I should get back to my other tables, but you boys let me know if you need anything.”

“Sure,” Theo murmurs as she walks away. “Thanks.” He rotates his coffee cup in short, counter-clockwise circles in its saucer as he looks out over the rest of the diner, his mind whirring. It takes him a few seconds to realize Nolan is staring at him. “What?”

Nolan jolts, and then flushes a little. “No, nothing,” he hurries to say, and then almost immediately contradicts himself. “I’ve just never seen you…” He trails off, and then concludes, mumbled and awkward, “That was just—convincing.”

Theo feels his lips twitch again, amused. “Thanks for the glowing review.”

They stay at the diner for another half-hour or so, and then Theo flags down their server for the check. She brings it over and then spends the time it takes Theo to sign the credit card slip—with _a_ name, though not _his_ name—chatting with Nolan about colleges, Nolan initially flushing and stumbling but rallying admirably by the time Theo is tucking the signed receipt back into the little leather folder, and crumpling his copy up into a little ball that he tucks into his pocket along with his wallet, his credit card safely back inside.

Nolan trails him back outside of the diner—and manages to do so without tripping them both up this time, to Theo’s private amusement—and then stops when Theo does, looking around.

“So what now?” He asks curiously, and more than a little _impatiently_ ; there’s a subtle prickling to his scent, staticky and stinging like running a hand over charged-up fabric; like electricity. _Nervousness_ , Theo thinks, tasting it on the back of his tongue. _Excitement_. He grins.

“I hope you brought a book or something,” he answers, and grins wider at Nolan’s confused frown. He takes two fingers, and digs them into Nolan’s shoulder, prodding him towards the passenger side of his truck.

They spend the next few hours at a local coffee shop, the location tucked away into a strip mall near one of the main roads out to the set of cabins up in the mountains alternately used by tourists and game hunters both. At lunch Theo drives them to a little taco stand, the food truck surrounded by weatherbeaten picnic tables that always seem to be a least half-full, the foot traffic constant and steady and including suited-up businesspeople and white-lab-coated doctors chatting idly with scrubs-wearing nurses, grime-streaked and tired-looking construction workers standing just behind them line. After that it’s back to a _different_ coffee shop, this one a chain and with Top 40s hits pumped softly through the speakers and that gets seemingly invaded by gaggles of teenagers as the afternoon wears on and school lets out.

To his credit, Nolan lasts until they’ve slid into a booth at an Italian place for dinner before cracking. “Okay, I don’t get it,” he confesses. “I thought we were here to _investigate_. Why aren’t we…investigating?”

Theo smirks and keeps his attention on his menu, his eyes absently scanning the text. “First off, _we_ were not here investigating _anything_. _I_ was here investigating.” Nolan scowls. “But second, riddle me this—what are the chances, you think, that Monroe is looking for people looking for her?”

The sour look on Nolan’s face fades, replaced with a furrow-browed frown. “High,” he ventures, finally, clearly expecting a trap. “Really high.”

“Mhm,” Theo hums, agreeing.

“So we’re... _not_ going to look for her?” Nolan asks after a few seconds, clearly baffled now.

Theo decides on his entree and flips the menu closed before tossing it lightly to the side. “Oh, we’re looking for her. We’ve been looking for her all day.”

If Nolan were anyone else—if Nolan were _Liam_ —he’d probably have thrown something at Theo by now. As it is Nolan’s expression just twists with frustration, and his stare becomes a little more of a glare. Theo relents.

“Think about it,” he says, not an order so much as a suggestion; a teacher offering a hint to a student hovering just on the edge of comprehension. “Did Monroe and her people do a lot of home-cooking, when they were in Beacon Hills?”

Understanding dawns over Nolan’s face. “They have to eat.” He glances around the restaurant with new eyes; Theo can practically see the pieces in his head click-click-clicking into a new, realigned shape. But then he frowns. “But why risk coming into town? Why not—delivery, or something?”

“Too risky,” Theo answers. “Especially if they _are_ the ones kidnapping people—they can’t risk their captives being seen, and recognized.”

Nolan considers this for a few seconds, his mouth pursing thoughtfully. “So we just…spend all day eating, and waiting for one of us to recognize one of her people?”

Theo smirks. “Like I said,” he tells Nolan. “I hope you brought a book.”

_**Nolan** _

Nolan doesn’t even realize what’s happening when Theo finally spots the lead they need, Theo reacts so subtly.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells Nolan, already in the process of sliding out of their booth, and onto his feet. Nolan glances at the phone in his hand and thinks _oh, he must be checking in with Scott and Argent_ , and nods with his full mouth. Theo smirks a little and orders, “Don’t go anywhere,” and completely ignores the face Nolan makes at his back.

Nolan keeps eating and reading the book that he’d grudgingly downloaded onto his tablet, and—after a while, and a glance snuck through the restaurant’s front windows at Theo outside on the sidewalk milling around with his phone pressed to his ear—starts sneaking individual fries off of Theo’s plate, and into his mouth. Their server comes by at one point to refill their drinks, and Nolan thanks him, laughs a little at some joke he makes, and chats with him a bit about his own college plans; he was thinking of Shasta College, maybe, too.

Theo comes back in the middle of that conversation. “Oh,” their server greets, blushing. “Hi, sorry, I was just—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Theo cuts him off, grinning. He ignores their server going an even deeper shade of red and starts to slide back into his seat, and then he gets a good look at his plate. “Hey!”

Nolan and their server both laugh.

“So how’s everybody in Beacon Hills?” Nolan asks once their server has left again.

“Fine, I assume,” Theo murmurs absently.

As he answers he pulls out his tablet, and sets it next to his phone. A few taps on his phone’s screen later, the picture that’d been displayed on it duplicates onto his tablet’s larger screen, and Theo pushes his phone to the side and drags his tablet closer in front of himself. Nolan frowns, and cranes his neck forward so that he can better see the picture, which gets larger and more clearly focused as Theo presses two pinched fingers to the screen, and then flares them wide.

“Who’s that?” Nolan asks as the screen fills with what turns out to be a headshot of a man, his profile half-turned away; a candid shot, Nolan realizes. A surveillance photo.

“If we’re lucky,” Theo answers, still mostly distracted, “it’s one of Monroe’s men.”

Nolan goes cold, immediately and all over. His heartbeat must jump or his scent must change; Theo looks up at him sharply. Swallowing and trying to smother his sudden bout of nerves—trying to still his shaking fingers, the tips of them pressed hard against the tabletop—Nolan stammers, “O-oh. How do you—how do you know?

Theo studies him for a few seconds, but apparently decides to let it go without pushing. “It’s the third time I’ve seen him around town, and each time he’s smelled like wolf.”

“And he’s human,” Nolan realizes, “isn’t he?”

Theo nods sharply. Blowing out a huge, shaky breath, Nolan starts to grab for his tablet, starts to pile his silverware on top of his plate; his fork makes a distressingly loud clatter as he goes to stack it, his fingers still trembling. But he looks up when Theo reaches over and touches careful fingertips to the back of his hand.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “We’re not going after him now.” Nolan’s brow furrows, and he opens his mouth to protest. Theo just cuts him off. “I sent Argent, the Sheriff, and Scott’s dad the photos of the man, and his license plate. They’re running both down as we speak. All we need to do for now is hang tight while they get back to us.”

Nolan feels something clenched tight in his chest unwind, even as his system floods with embarrassment at his apparently oh-so-transparent reaction. “Right,” Nolan manages to croak. He swallows, and tries again. “Right, okay.”

Theo takes them back to the motel after they finish eating instead of to another restaurant, or coffee shop. Nolan understands why soon after: the second the door closes behind them, Theo slides his phone out of his pocket and dials some number, and then puts his phone on speaker and tosses it lightly onto one of the beds.

“Theo?” The Sheriff’s voice comes, and Theo calls back, “Yeah, I’m here.”

Nolan spends the ensuing discussion between Theo, the Sheriff, Argent, Agent McCall and—in rotating series Derek, Parrish, Malia, and Scott—curled up in the motel room’s armchair with his knees pulled up to his chest. Every now and then Theo glances over at him—Nolan can feel his own heartbeat spike at certain points, like when the Sheriff groans softly and says _and we still have no idea how many people she might have in town_ —but he doesn’t say anything, or otherwise interrupt the rhythm of the call.

Or at least, Theo doesn’t until he sighs, and scrubs the heels of his palms roughly over his face, and says, “If that’s what the satellite footage is showing, then there’s nothing for it: we’ve got to go check out that house.”

His declaration kicks off a flurry of back-and-forth, but Nolan can’t follow any of it. There’s something hard and sharp in his throat and a hollow in his stomach, and he curls a little more into himself, his forehead pressed to his knees. _What are you working on, Nolan?_ , Rossler whispers in his ear again, while above him Monroe asks in her soft, silky voice—just as soft and just as silky as a spider’s web— _unless you think I need to worry about this happening again?_

 _Nolan_ , he hears. _Nolan_. Then, “Nolan!”

Nolan jumps, flailing away from the hand on his arm. Theo doesn’t move to follow him or otherwise react, just stays where he is—kneeled down in front of the armchair with his eyes on Nolan’s face—and calmly takes his hand back. From the phone still on the bed Nolan can still hear the Sheriff and Argent and Scott and the others talking and debating without pause; Theo must have muted his phone before coming over.

“S-sorry,” Nolan gasps, his heart _pounding_ against his ribs. “Sorry.”

Theo doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then he glances away, his jaw going tight. All at once he rises back to his feet and starts heading for his phone. “This isn’t going to work,” he says as he goes. “I’ll tell them we’ll have to change plans, that they’ll need to send someone else into town to come help me and,” he pauses, minutely, before continuing, “to escort you back.”

Nolan realizes what he’s getting at seconds before Theo manages to get a hold of his phone. “No!” He protests, and Theo freezes, and whips his head back around to look at him. “No, you said—you _said_ …” He stops, and swallows. “You told Argent and Liam and Scott—you _convinced_ them—that if anyone else came to town, it’d ruin everything. That Monroe would _know_.”

Theo makes a frustrated noise, but he takes his hand away from his phone, at least for the time being; the debate continues to rage from the speakers, but to Nolan it’s just one blurred mass of syllables. “That was _before_. We have a lead now. Even if Monroe and her people ran, we could—”

“But we’d lose _time_ , right?” Nolan interrupts. “And the element of surprise.”

Theo’s jaw tightens; Nolan’s right.

“No,” Nolan repeats, forceful even with the way his voice shakes.

“Nolan,” Theo starts to argue, and then he bites off a rough sound. “I can’t take you,” he stops, and corrects himself, “I _won’t_ take you—” He stops again, and then snaps, “Jesus, Nolan, there’s no way you can’t _feel_ how fast your goddamn heart is beating, and we’re only _talking_ about possibly running into her people.”

“I can do this!” Nolan protests, half talking over him. “So what if I’m scared, that doesn’t mean I—”

“You’re _human_ ,” Theo reminds him snappishly. “Maybe you’ve spent too much time running with supernaturals, but if something—”

“And you’re a supernatural,” Nolan interrupts, “talking about sneaking into a building occupied by a bunch of people who’ve figured out how to _enslave_ supernaturals!”

Theo’s jaw snaps shut. He keeps glaring at Nolan, who keeps glaring right on back at him, and then he jolts some, and blinks. He leans over with one hand braced on the mattress and—ignoring Nolan’s startled protest—unmutes his phone.

“Sorry, what was that?” He asks, sounding entirely normal, and undisturbed.

“I asked about the risk,” the Sheriff says, apparently repeating an earlier question. “Whether you think the risk of something happening to you or Nolan outweighs the benefits of what you might be able to learn.”

Theo doesn’t answer right away. He eyes flick back to Nolan, whose mouth goes mulish; he can feel his teeth clench.

“Yes,” he finally says. “Yeah, the benefits—the benefits outweigh the risk.”

_**Theo** _

Theo has to crack the windows in his truck partway into his and Nolan’s surveillance of Monroe’s probable hideout: the scent of Nolan’s fear and anxiety starts giving him a headache.

He keeps his eyes on the cabin and does his best not to look over at Nolan in the passenger seat, since that only seems to crank Nolan’s frayed emotional state higher; Nolan convincing himself he’s hiding it otherwise, Theo supposes. Gritting his teeth, he keeps absently playing with his phone, flipping it corner-over-corner in counterclockwise circles on his leg.

Still, _he_ jumps when Nolan suddenly asks, “Have you—have you talked to Liam at all since we got here?”

He’s looking at Theo’s phone. Theo stills it, clenching it in his fist before forcing his fingers to loosen. “Not the time, Nolan,” Theo warns, and then has to start flipping his phone again; needing something to do with his hands.

But now that Nolan’s brought it _up_ …

“No,” Theo finds himself admitting a half-minute or so later. He can hear the slight creak of the seats when Nolan glances over at him, though Theo keeps his eyes on the cabin. Sighing, he lets his head drop back against the headrest. “Scott said he was pretty furious when he found out about you showing up. Said it showed I’d lied, and Scott and Argent, too.”

Nolan cringes. Theo can see it in the reflection of the windshield. “Theo, I’m so—”

“Don’t be,” Theo cuts him off. He smirks tiredly, still looking at the cabin. “Maybe this time him being mad at me will stick.” Shifting to relieve the way one of his hips had started to ache, Theo snorts a dry, humorless laugh and adds wryly, “So if anything, really, I should probably be thanking you.”

But:

“Don’t say that,” Nolan whispers, and Theo can’t help looking over at him, surprised. “I’m already responsible for… And you and Liam are…”

“Nolan,” Theo starts to say, and then stops, his head whipping back around towards the cabin. The front door creaks open, spilling warm light out onto the porch.

 _Stalnaker_ , Theo’s mind immediately pulls up as the first man steps out. _Richmond_. He frowns; he doesn’t recognize the third.

“The files,” Theo orders, throwing out a hand towards Nolan. “Nolan, the _files_ , the missing person files in your lap!” He clarifies harshly, snapping and gesturing impatiently when Nolan just stares at him, obviously confused.

Nolan makes a startled, panicked sound as he realizes and hurries to gather up the files that he’d been listlessly pretending to look at before, and hands them over all in a messy pile. Theo grits his teeth and—alternating between keeping an eye on the three men standing in front of the cabin and darting quick glances down at the files that he opens, and then discards, one after the other—starts trying to match the third man’s face to a name.

He finds it.

“Li-Jun Shieh,” he murmurs, lifting up the folder so that he can fold the front cover back around, behind the rest of the file. He scans his eyes quickly down the text. “Disappeared two weeks ago. Hadn’t been seen since.” Even as he watches Li-Jun turns slightly, still stood in the spill of light from the cabin, and his eyes flare reflexively; Theo exhales out roughly, and throws the file down with a _slap_ onto the middle console between him and Nolan. “Shit.”

Nolan had leaned forward in his seat to better squint at Li-Jun and Monroe’s two men through the windshield, but now he turns to frown thoughtfully at Theo. “Isn’t—isn’t this a good thing? You were right. Your theory that Monroe is kidnapping people and turning them into werewolves is right.”

Theo doesn’t look at him, just keeps glaring through the windshield at the three clustered men, one elbow braced on his window and his hand half-covering his face. “Yeah, well,” he answers, more than a little sharply. He thinks, briefly, of every grave that every chimera—that every _kidnapped teenager_ —had dug themselves out of, and has to grit his teeth. “I was really hoping I was _wrong_.”

Nolan bites his lip—Theo can see it again in the reflection of the windshield—and then he slowly leans back into his seat. Theo keeps his eyes on the men, but as his burst of frustration—his burst of _despair_ —starts to fade, he starts to wonder. This time _he_ leans forward, eyes flaring and then narrowing.

“What the hell are they doing…?” He murmurs; even as he watches, Richmond removes a gun from his waistband and checks it. Stalnaker doesn’t; instead he says something—Theo can’t catch it, even with his hearing supernaturally-sharpened—to Li-Jun next to him, whose eyes suddenly flare and whose mouth suddenly fills with fangs as he snarls, but Stalnaker just laughs, and pats him on the check. _He can’t attack them_ , Theo realizes.

“ _Shit_ ,” he spits out again, and feels his own fangs trying to drop.

“Theo…” Nolan starts to say, and then stops; Richmond and Stalnaker, with Li-Jun trailing after them, suddenly start heading towards a hulking SUV parked in the cabin’s driveway. The front door of the cabin closes— _somebody else inside_ —just as the three of them climb inside the SUV, and the SUV roars to life.

Nolan gives a panicked sound and hunches down in his seat as the SUV goes roaring past, but Theo stays where he is, thinking. He drums his fingers on his steering wheel, debating, but. “ _Shit_ ,” he hisses, for the third time in as many minutes, and then twists around so that he can reach into the backseat.

“What?” Nolan demands, obviously shaken. “What’s going on, why do you keep swearing?”

He cuts off when Theo twists back around and throws something into his lap. He frowns, and then reaches down and picks up the pitch-black hoodie, holding it uncertainly between his hands.

“Put that on,” Theo orders, and starts sliding into his own dark jacket. He flips the hood up, and opens his truck door.

Behind him, he can hear _Nolan_ swearing, and scrambling down out of the truck on the other side. He rounds the front of the truck soon after, still struggling into the hoodie.

“We are going to go walk by that cabin, okay?” Theo explains, before he can ask. “We are going to do it calmly, like we’re just two spoiled teenage kids bored on our family vacation.”

Even in the weak moonlight, Theo can see Nolan pale. For a second his own resolve falters. _He can’t do this_ , he finds himself thinking, and then: I _can’t do this_ to _him_ , but.

But: _you’re not the only one who has things you need to make up for_.

 _Shit_ , Theo thinks, but doesn’t say, and waits. “O-okay,” Nolan finally stammers, and then drops his gaze sharply down as he continues to fight with the hoodie’s zipper. Something clenches in Theo’s chest, and before he can stop himself, he reaches forward and bats Nolan’s hands away, and finishes zipping up Nolan’s hoodie himself.

“You can do this, Nolan,” he tells him quietly, and meets Nolan’s eyes when Nolan sneaks a look up at him. “Just stick close to me. Though,” he adds, grinning, “maybe not close enough to trip me up this time, huh?” Nolan colors, but he also chokes out a helpless laugh.

He also follows when Theo starts heading towards the cabin.

“Talk,” Theo orders quietly as they get close. “About anything,” he clarifies, before Nolan can ask. “Just talk, and don’t stop talking.”

He can hear Nolan’s throat click as he swallows, but Nolan does as requested; he starts talking, and doesn’t stop, no matter the fact that Theo doesn’t say a word beyond absent _hmms_ and _oh, yeahs?_ The rhythm of his voice forms a comforting white noise as Theo closes his eyes—letting his feet, and Nolan’s voice, guide him—as he shifts his hearing, and stretches it out towards the cabin.

It’s a decent-sized building; a long-term tourist rental, according to the information the Sheriff and Scott’s dad had pulled up. Theo searches through the basement, up into the main floor, one room after the next. There’s a heartbeat in one of the main rooms, close to the front door. It’s slow, steady; relaxed. Almost buried underneath the sound of the television blaring away. Theo leaves it for the time being, and keeps searching the rest of the house.

“What the hell,” he murmurs, his eyes easing back open.

He and Nolan are past the cabin now, and at the corner of the block. “Wait,” he orders Nolan quietly, and pulls out his phone, pretends to check its glowing screen as he stretches his hearing back out towards the cabin, wanting to double-check what he’d _thought_ …

He’d been right. He blinks, and lets his shifted hearing fade again. “What is it?” Nolan asks, but Theo just shakes his head, and then checks both ways before starting to jog forward, across the street. Nolan makes a noise, and hurries after him.

“It sounded like medical equipment,” Theo tells him quietly, once Nolan has managed to catch up. “A heart-rate monitor, and maybe a ventilator.” _Like someone’s on life-support_ , Theo realizes, and frowns. His bracelet catches on the edge of his pocket as he goes to slide his hands inside. Irritated, he takes his hands back out and tucks them into his jacket pockets, instead.

And then something occurs to him, and he stops dead. “ _Shit_ ,” he swears, and brings his hands up to rake and then clutch in his hair, knocking the hood half off his head as he does.

“What _now?_ ” Nolan demands, apparently frustrated enough with Theo’s constant, unexplained outbursts to momentarily forget his nerves; Theo finds his lips twitching in spite of himself.

But.

Theo chews his lip, debating. But Nolan is looking at him expectantly, _determinedly_ , even with the way that his scent is still saturated with fear-sweat, and the subtle tang of blood from where he’d picked some of his nails bloody while they’d been in the truck. He exhales out roughly.

“There are only two people in that cabin right now,” he finally explains flatly. “And it sounds like one of them is in a _coma_.”

It doesn’t take Nolan to realize what he’s getting at. “You want to go inside. You want to search it.”

“Yeah,” Theo agrees tightly. “But I can’t.”

Nolan frowns at him, clearly confused. And then his expression slackens with understanding, before tightening right back up. “You mean _I_ can’t,” he accuses. “You’re afraid of taking me with you.”

“I _won’t_ take you with me,” Theo corrects sharply. “And I’m not leaving you out here, or in my truck, by yourself.”

“That doesn’t make any—!” Nolan starts to protest. “You can’t be—you said there are _two people_. And one of them is in a _coma_. That means the odds—!”

“Oh, are we counting you, now?” Theo shoots back nastily. “I can’t search the cabin without getting caught _and_ watch you, that’s not—”

“You’re a patronizing asshole, so _fuck you_ ,” Nolan spits out. “You’re the one always talking about waiting for the _right opportunity_ , and here one is and you’re going to let it go without _trying_ , and let’s be honest, this has _way more_ to do with _you_ than with—”

“ _What?_ ” Theo interrupts furiously, practically hissing it out. “What the hell are you talking about, of course it has to do with—”

“Keeping me alive isn’t going to make up for what you did to Josh and Tracy!” Nolan practically yells, and Theo’s too busy at first getting a hand in his collar and slapping a hand over his mouth to fully register what he’d said.

And then he does.

“What the fuck did you just,” he starts, and then has to cut himself off, fury and disbelief and—and _guilt_ , though he shoves that last one away, hard and fast, ignitinging in his chest. He still has his hand clamped over Nolan’s mouth. Nolan reaches up, and rips it away. Theo lets him.

“We—you _and_ me—have the opportunity to get our hands on information that could help Scott _stop_ Monroe. That could help him _stop the killing_ ,” Nolan argues hotly. “And if you use me as an excuse to _waste_ this chance, then— _then—_ ”

Theo stares at him, his chest one snarling, conflicted mess, and then: “ _Shit_ ,” he hisses, one last time.

_**Nolan** _

_Okay_ , this _is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done_ , Nolan thinks to himself as he’s stood huddled behind Theo as Theo gets his hands on the handle of a side door leading into the cabin, and starts to press inexorably down, down, until the lock gives.

Theo glances back at him after, his eyes assessing, and so Nolan—even though his hands haven’t stopped shaking, and his throat is so tight and so coated with the metallic taste of adrenaline that he can barely swallow around it—Nolan nods, jerkily. The line of Theo’s mouth tightens—he isn’t buying what Nolan’s attempting to sell, clearly—but after another long second he silently swears and turns back around, and pushes the door carefully, _silently_ , open.

The door leads into some kind of mud room. As they’d been approaching the cabin Nolan had started to naturally drift towards the glass back door he could see glinting in the moonlight, but Theo had grabbed his arm and kept pulling him around until they’d reached this door. _He’d memorized the layout_ , Nolan remembers. Theo had spent an entire night at the motel after they’d identified the cabin with his tablet in hand and a cheap photo printer he’d picked up, printing one photo after the other off the rental company’s website.

It’d paid off, apparently. Theo pauses just inside the door and listens, his head tilted up, and out, towards the rest of the cabin above, but there’s no sound of footsteps, or alarm; they were far enough away from the single conscious occupant that they hadn’t heard the door open, apparently. Exhaling out softly, quietly, Theo glances back at Nolan and jerks his chin forward: _let’s go_. Nolan nods shakily.

The basement is unfurnished, and practically empty. Wherever Monroe is keeping the arsenal she no doubt _has_ , Nolan thinks, it clearly isn’t here. Theo spends a few seconds studying the bare concrete walls and pillars—the piles of brightly-colored plastic sleds, and snow-shovels—and then he moves on. Nolan follows as quickly as he can, his eyes on Theo’s feet; Theo’s eyes weren’t glowing, so Nolan doesn’t think he’d shifted them fully, but he’d clearly done _something_ to be able to see in the near-dark. Nolan grits his teeth, and focuses first and foremost on not tripping over something, up to and including his own feet.

The stairs up to the main floor present more of a challenge. Theo stops at the base and closes his eyes again, his head cocking; _he’s listening_ , Nolan realizes. After a few seconds Theo’s eyes blink open and he turns to look at Nolan.

 _Do what I do_ , he mouths, once and then again; on the second time, squinting, Nolan realizes what he’s saying, and nods. Theo hesitates for another beat, and then he turns, and puts his first foot up on the first step.

He does it carefully, and deliberately, and places it on nearly the absolute edge of the step, just inches from the wall. _Oh_ , Nolan thinks, catching on; he was stepping on the most stable part of the stair to minimize the chances of it creaking. Theo takes another step in exactly the same way, and Nolan follows.

They make it to the top of the stairs in near-silence. At the top Theo not only hesitates, but drops into a crouch; he gets a hand on Nolan’s shoulder and presses him down, too. Nolan realizes why, after only a split-second of confusion; the main level is practically one open room, no walls between the kitchen and the dining area with the large wooden table and the living room with its cluster of couches. Nolan stares at the head of the man he can see leaned back against the back of the couch cushions, and feels his latest breath stutter quietly loose of his chest.

Theo shoots him a look, and then shifts just enough to press his shoulder to Nolan’s; Nolan closes his eyes against the sudden burst of heat he can feel in their corners, and presses back. He also stays perfectly still, and perfectly silent, unsure what it is, exactly, that Theo’s waiting for, but trusting him regardless.

And then, after half a minute or so, he doesn’t need to rely on his trust for Theo to understand, because underneath the blare of the TV speakers, he hears a quiet snore.

Theo doesn’t waste time, after that; he _moves_. Nolan scrambles—wincing as his shoes squeak on the wooden floor, but Theo doesn’t look back or otherwise acknowledge the sound, so Nolan doesn’t, either—after him. The stairs up to the second floor are on the same wall, opposite the kitchen and right next to the living room, but there’s a railing in the way; Theo and Nolan have to skirt it before they can duck up the stairwell. Nolan doesn’t need Theo to show him where to place his feet this time.

The second floor turns out to be essentially one long hallway, with rooms branching off on either side. For a second Theo hesitates at the top of the stairs, chewing his lip, and then he looks back at Nolan and grabs his shoulders, and positions him just to the side of the stairwell. _Stay here_ , he mouths. Nolan nearly protests before he remembers, and then—confused and a little annoyed but helpless to do much else—he finally nods. Theo smirks a little—he’d caught the annoyance, somehow, smelled it in his scent or heard it in his heartbeat or saw it on his face—but then he releases Nolan’s arms, and ducks into the first room.

Nolan gets it, after that.

Theo makes his way quickly through the rooms closest to the stairwell, ducking in and out of them fast, and quietly. He doesn’t spend more than ten seconds in each, if that, before returning to the hallway. Before returning to the hallway and positioning the doors _exactly_ as they had been before he’d slipped inside, Nolan realizes, watching him pull one door about two-thirds of the way shut.

And then he reaches the last door at the end of the hallway, and stops.

He also gestures to Nolan, one hand held palm up, his fingers bending flat and then curling twice: _come here_. Nolan nearly scrambles thoughtlessly towards him and stops himself only at the last second. Biting his lip, Nolan starts carefully making his way to the end of the hallway instead, placing his feet carefully and backpedaling quickly every time the floor underneath his shoes starts to groan.

Finally he reaches Theo, who gives him an amused, if appreciative, look, and then glances away, back towards the door. He sucks in a deep breath—Nolan watches his shoulders rise and fall, and wonders if he’s doing it to try and get a scent, or if it’s more innocuous, more normal; Theo just trying to center himself—and then he gets a palm on the door, and slowly pushes it open.

He’d been right about the medical equipment.

Nolan gapes as he stands in the open doorway, and stares at the sight in front of him. The man on the bed doesn’t stir—not at the door opening, or when Theo steps into the room—but that’s probably because he _can’t_. Nolan’s eyes flick over the plastic mask over the man’s face; the IV trailing from his arm; the monitor beeping steadily away by his head, spikes of radioactive green shooting up, and down, in time with the man’s apparent heartbeat.

“Oh my god,” Nolan can’t stop himself from breathing, horrified.

Theo shoots him a sharp look, and Nolan clamps his jaw shut. Dragging his gaze back away from Nolan, Theo carefully rounds the bed—the tension in his muscles clear, like he was ready to leap away at any moment—until he’s standing by the man’s head. As Nolan watches Theo runs his gaze down the length of the man’s body, his eyes flicking over the wires and tubes, his expression getting harder and harder as they do. After a few seconds he stops, and drags his gaze back up, up, until he’s looking at the IV bag hanging by the man’s head. He gets one hand on it, and tilts it closer to the moonlight pouring in from the room’s single window.

Nolan sucks in a sharp breath.

The look Theo shoots him this time isn’t just sharp, but piercing. But Nolan can’t focus on it; his feet are already carrying him closer to the bed, and the man within it, and Theo. To the IV bag still held carefully in Theo’s hand.

“What is it?” Theo murmurs when he gets close enough, so quietly that Nolan barely hears him even from just a few inches away.

“I—I think it’s wolfsbane,” Nolan answers just as softly, and lifts an arm to touch careful fingers to the outside of the bag; the purple-tinged liquid inside shimmers. “It looks just like,” he starts to say, and then swallows. “At the hospital, at the—the end,” Theo is staring at him, narrow-eyed and focused, “Monroe had werewolves hooked up to bags that looked just like that.”

Theo’s attention jerks back to the bag, and his jaw clenches. But after a second it softens, and Theo lowers the bag carefully back down. Nolan glances at him in surprise, but his expression hasn't lost its hardness; Nolan can see the muscles at the corner of his jaw ticking. He swallows.

He swallows, and then he bites off a small, surprised sound as Theo’s eyes suddenly narrow, and he moves in closer to the bed, forcing Nolan to shift suddenly to the side. Nolan’s about to ask when he doesn’t have to, anymore; Theo gets his fingers around the comatose man’s forearm, and carefully twists it so that the front of it—which had been only partially visible before—is fully revealed. Nolan feels his breath freeze in his chest just as Theo lets out a stunned, shaky exhale.

 _Transference_ , Theo had said that day at the operating theater after Liam had dragged Nolan to see him, Nolan’s absent, obsessive sketches in hand. _The additional symbols Nolan remembered. When combined with the original symbols, they change the meaning of the spell._

Transference, he’d said. It’d be for transference.

“We have to go,” Theo suddenly says, almost over-loud in the silence of the room. “We have to go _right now_.”

He gets a hand on Nolan’s arm and pulls him back as he starts to turn, and then he freezes, Nolan going equally still behind him. The man in the doorway—the _kid_ in the doorway, really, he can’t be that much older than Nolan himself—stares at them in mute shock.

And then his eyes flare golden, and his jaw drops open in a snarl as his mouth fills with fangs.


	3. Chapter 3

**iii. a monument**

* * *

_**Theo** _

The first thing Theo does is get a hand in the back of Nolan’s collar and _yank_ him back behind himself.

Nolan hits the back wall hard—Theo can hear him cry out—but he doesn’t have time to focus on it; the young werewolf in the doorway snarls again, and lunges for him. Theo manages to catch him, but partway through pivoting the werewolf over his hip he realizes that completing the move would put the snarling, clawed kid right next to _Nolan_. Gritting his teeth, and with his back and arm muscles _screaming_ , Theo manages to interrupt his own momentum to practically dump the kid onto the floor right next to his feet.

“Nolan, _move!_ ” Theo yells, and then snarls out a pained shout of his own as the werewolf’s claws rake across the back of his legs, the werewolf finding his feet again and lashing out from his crouched position.

Nolan goes scrambling back—or at least Theo _thinks_ he does, _prays_ he does—and that gives Theo more room to maneuver. As the werewolf strikes out again Theo twists his torso sideways to avoid it and then grabs the werewolf’s outstretched arms, and throws him forward. The werewolf hits the wall right where Nolan had been—so Nolan had moved, thank god—and crumples down it, some, but his head whips back around _fast_ , still golden-eyed and fanged.

But that’s not Theo’s only problem. “Theo!” Nolan shouts in warning, and Theo jerks around just in time to see the hunter from downstairs appear stumbling in the doorway, naked surprise all over his face but—more importantly—a _gun_ in his hands. His eyes dart frantically over the room, from Theo to the werewolf behind Theo to the werewolf—the comatose, _branded_ werewolf—in the bed, to _Nolan_.

His gun starts to come up.

“No!” Theo shouts, and lunges for him.

It works as a distraction, if nothing else. The hunter startles badly and jerks his gun around to Theo instead, but his shot goes wild in his surprise. It gives Theo the opportunity to barrel into him, knocking him back into the hallway. Theo hits him hard enough that the hunter crashes into the opposite wall, and goes down on all-fours with a winded gasp. He also drops the _gun_ , which Theo goes to kick away from his grasping fingers.

But then he can’t, because five sharp lines of agony open up across his back.

“ _Shit_ ,” Theo swears, and goes staggering a few steps sideways, into the wall at the end of the hallway. And then he has to whip around and duck _fast_ as the werewolf strikes out at his head, the werewolf’s claws scoring five deep gouges into the wall where Theo’s face had just been.

Theo can’t keep this up. Behind the werewolf he can see the hunter groaning, and reaching out crawling fingers for his gun. Closing his eyes, he thinks, _I’m so sorry for this_ at the werewolf—some poor, random, kidnapped _kid_ —and then he moves.

He twists out from behind the werewolf but doesn’t go far; just far enough, in fact, that he can get himself lined up with the werewolf, and then he kicks out. His foot lands exactly where he’d aimed it—just below the kid’s right knee—and the werewolf _shrieks_ as his leg snaps. Theo ignores the way the sound cuts at him and catches the werewolf as he starts to fall, his hands on either side of the werewolf’s head so that he can pivot back around and _slam_ it into the wall that Theo had just had his bloody back to.

Werewolf or not, the kid goes out like a light.

But it almost doesn’t matter, because the second Theo starts to straighten up and turn to deal with the hunter, he realizes that the hunter had already staggered back to his feet. Theo has a split-second to stare in dismay as the man raises his gun, and then he’s jerking backwards as the bullet slams into his stomach.

Theo cries out helplessly and almost immediately collapses onto his knees and one hand, his other hand reflexively flying to his stomach to press against the gut-wound. Blood streams fast and heavy from between his fingers, but that’s not what Theo’s worried about. It’s the _poison_ —the _wolfsbane_ —he can feel spreading out from the wound, already weakening him as it goes. _Shit, shit_ , he thinks, and just barely manages to drag his gaze upwards to look at the hunter as he sees the man’s feet appear in front of his own trembling, bracing fingers.

“You know,” the hunter says, as he sees that he has Theo’s attention, “I’m sure Monroe would want to talk to you, but…” He grins, sharp and nasty. “But you put up quite the fight, you know. Accidents happen.” He raises his gun to aim it right between Theo’s eyes.

But he doesn’t get a chance to fire it, because Nolan suddenly yells, “No!,” and barrels directly into his side.

Theo doesn’t waste the opportunity, even as he’s cursing Nolan for putting himself at risk; even as he’s cursing _himself_ for putting _Nolan_ at risk in the first place. Nolan and the hunter go down in a tangle on the floor, Nolan hands desperately wrapped around the gun that the hunter is now trying to wrestle away from him. Theo doesn’t bother with finesse; he gets a hand in Nolan’s collar once again and throws him backwards just as he, himself, lunges forward, taking Nolan’s place pinning the hunter down. He gets a hand around the gun while the hunter is still too surprised to react, and rips it out of his hands, then swings it immediately back around in an arc to crack against the side of the hunter’s temple.

The man goes out. The man goes out, and—Theo straining his ears to listen over his own panting, harsh breathing—he isn’t likely to come back.

Gasping, Theo drops the gun and lets himself fall sideways, off of the hunter. He means to catch himself on one hand but his elbow collapses as he lands on it, and it’s only Nolan—who makes a surprised noise and lunges forward—catching him that prevents him from faceplanting directly into the ground.

“Theo, oh my god. Theo,” Nolan is repeating, almost on a loop. Theo doesn’t have to look up at him to guess that he’s looking at the black-blooded mess of Theo’s stomach.

“We have to,” Theo starts to tell him, and then has to stop with a gasp and curl inward over himself as _pain_ shoots out from the bullet wound. “Nolan, we have to _go_.”

“Okay,” Nolan agrees, stammering it out. “Okay, right, c’mon.” He starts to stand, dragging Theo up with him as he goes; Theo grits his teeth and makes sure to grab the hunter’s gun as they go, tucking it into his jacket pocket.

But the second they make it back to their feet, Theo winds up glancing absently to the side as he pants, and tries to brace himself against the pain of his gut wound, and he winds up looking directly at the comatose werewolf still laid out deceptively peacefully on the bed. “Wait,” he gasps at Nolan, as Nolan goes to start pulling him towards the stairs. “Wait.”

He tugs himself out of Nolan’s grip—ignoring Nolan’s panicked protest, and his attempt to grab back onto Theo’s arms—and goes stumbling back into the room. He half-collapses onto his bracing arms on the side of the bed, his fingers landing right next to the werewolf’s branded forearm, and he grimaces as his eyes drag up to the werewolf’s face.

“Fuck,” he whispers regretfully, and then he steels himself and pushes up off the bed, so that he can reach for the IV bag of wolfsbane.

“Wait,” Nolan stutters from behind him. “Wait, Theo—what the hell are you doing?”

Theo grits his teeth. “He’s an alpha, Nolan. That’s how—that’s how Monroe is making new werewolves, and controlling them. The brands on his arm, the transference spell. She’s transferred his alpha abilities to _herself_.” He fumbles his fingers around the IV bag until he finds the tubing leading out from it, and starts following it down.

“What? But—but _how?_ ” Nolan protests. “She’s not a werewolf.”

“It’s not the physical abilities she wanted, forget the claws and fangs. It’s the _mental_ aspect, the _control_ ,” Theo tells him, his shaking fingers still trailing the tubing down, down, until he finds what he’s looking for.

Nolan must finally spot what he’s doing because he sucks in a sharp breath. “Theo…you, you _can’t_. He’s not…It’s not his _fault!_ ”

Theo bites back a snarl. “What do you want me to _do_ , Nolan? Who knows how many werewolves she’s got controlled through his transferred abilities. And, Nolan,” he hesitates, but. He stops, and looks back at Nolan, though he keeps his fingers on the plastic lever that, when turned, will open up the flow of wolfsbane into the werewolf _wide_. “Nolan, he’s not waking up. He’s not—he’s already gone.”

“What?” Nolan says, after a stunned second. His eyes flick to the werewolf’s face. “But…but you said it’s a _coma_ , you said—”

“His body is alive,” Theo interrupts. “His mind…” He trails off, and looks back down at the werewolf.

He also makes a decision, and flicks the lever on the IV bag tubing wide.

“C’mon,” he murmurs as he starts to turn. “C’mon, we’ve got to—”

He can’t finish; partway through his turn his legs give out, and he hits the floor on his hands and knees again. _Fuck, fuck_ , he thinks desperately, his arms _shaking_ , but luckily Nolan is there in the next moment, sliding down onto his knees next to Theo and getting his arms back around Theo’s shoulders, helping him sit up.

“Theo,” he tries, but Theo just shakes his head.

“Come _on_ ,” he orders harshly, and starts trying to stagger to his feet again. He isn’t going to manage it on his own, he can already tell, but he doesn’t need to; Nolan bites off a high, hurt sound and gets one of his shoulders braced underneath Theo’s arm, and helps lever him upright.

They start stumbling towards the door, Theo having to give up after the first few steps on bearing most of his own weight, and instead having to concentrate as best he can on his balance to avoid sending both him and Nolan back to the floor. He’s focused enough on it that he almost sends them tumbling forward _anyway_ when Nolan unexpectedly stops, just outside the bedroom doorway.

“Nolan,” Theo chastises, but then he actually glances over, and follows Nolan’s eyeline down.

Down to the young werewolf, still crumpled against the wall, and whose eyes are blinking blearily open.

“ _No_ ,” Theo hisses in warning. “No, absolutely not.”

Nolan just jerks his head up and around to meet Theo’s furious stare head-on. “He’s a victim, too! And—and if the alpha werewolf is, is going to _die_ ,” here Nolan has to stop, and swallow once, “then he isn’t going to be any more _use_ to Monroe and her people!”

“That’s not our problem!” Theo snaps, and then has to bite off a gasp when the movement jostles his wounded stomach. “We don’t know anything _about_ him!” He tries, but.

But he looks at the mulish set to Nolan’s jaw, and knows he’s lost.

“C’mon,” Nolan tells the werewolf, turning away from Theo as he does and holding out his free hand. “C’mon, come with us.”

For a few moments the werewolf doesn’t move, just stares, wide-eyed, up at Nolan’s outstretched hand. And then his eyes flick to Theo. To the hunter still lying sprawled, motionless, on the floor. To the open bedroom doorway, and through it, to the comatose werewolf in the bed, whose pulse—the _beeps_ of the heart rate monitor getting farther and farther apart—starts to slow.

And then the young werewolf’s eyes flick back to Nolan’s, and he reaches up and grabs Nolan’s outstretched arm.

_**Nolan** _

Whatever Theo’s initial opinions on the matter, it winds up being a damn good thing that the werewolf comes with them, because it’s the werewolf who ends up having to all but carry Theo back out of the cabin.

It doesn’t happen at _first_. For one thing, the werewolf hesitates standing, hopping a little on his left leg like he’s—like he’s trying to keep weight off of his _right_ leg; the one that Theo had broken. But after a second of visible, startled surprise when the werewolf stumbles, unbalanced, and reflexively catches himself on his apparently completely-healed right leg—and after Theo snaps _we have to_ go _, what the fuck are you doing_ —he seemingly gets over it and darts forward to follow Nolan and Theo as they go staggering down the hallway towards the stairs, one of Theo’s arms over Nolan’s shoulders.

But even more than that, there’s something going on between Theo and the werewolf that Nolan doesn’t understand. Theo’s eyes aren’t flared and his mouth isn’t fanged but Nolan gets the sense that he _wants_ them to be; that the only reason that they _aren’t_ is because Theo’s too weak to hold the shift. But regardless the werewolf keeps his distance, hugging Nolan’s opposite side as he trails after them, and with his eyes flicking every now and then to Theo; Nolan can see it out of the corner of his eye.

But then they reach the stairs, and whatever-it-is doesn’t matter anymore.

It _can’t_ , because Theo’s foot hits the first step and his whole leg just _collapses_ , and it’s only the werewolf making a high, startled sound and lunging forward to catch both Theo and Nolan that prevents them from tumbling headlong down the stairs. All three of them wind up in a messy pile at the top, Theo crying out and then panting—his head arched back and his eyes clenched shut—as the sudden movement jars his stomach. Nolan feels guilt and terror surge through his body—clotting up his veins and ballooning out inside his ribcage, squeezing his lungs—as he pushes himself up onto his elbows and stares down at him.

“Why aren’t you _healing?_ ” Nolan wonders desperately. It’s not exactly a question—more a helpless thought that slips loose of his tongue before he can stop it—but Theo answers anyway.

“The bullet was poisoned,” Theo grits out from between clenched teeth. “I can, I can _fix it_ when we _get back to my truck_.”

It’s an order. Nolan bites off a guilty sound and scrambles to get his shoulders braced once more under one of Theo’s arms, but then he stops, hesitating. _Nolan_ , Theo hisses, but Nolan just ignores him for the moment, and looks towards the werewolf half-sprawled back from where he’d fallen when he’d yanked Theo and Nolan back from falling down the stairs.

“What—what’s your name?” He asks, and continues to ignore Theo when Theo snaps _this is not the goddamn time, Nolan!_

The werewolf glances uncertainly between Nolan and Theo, but then he swallows, and looks back at Nolan, and stammers out, “Alec. It’s—it’s Alec.”

“Alec,” Nolan repeats firmly. “Okay, Alec. Come—come help me. I need—I need your help.”

He starts tugging Theo up demonstratively, and it doesn’t take Alec long to get it. Still, he hesitates, clearly still wary of getting close to Theo, but after another split-second he apparently steels himself and scrambles forward on his hands and knees, and takes hold of Theo’s other arm. Theo does snap his teeth at him—and Alec isn’t the only one who startles back, Nolan nearly sending _himself_ back down the stairs in surprise—but then Theo squeezes his eyes shut, and shakes his head once, and holds out the arm that Alec had dropped.

“Fuck, _sorry_. It’s—” Theo gives up on explaining, and just snaps, “You _know_ what it is, now _come on_ , we have to _go_.”

And Nolan for his part has no _idea_ what ‘it’ is, but apparently Alec does, because after a second he nods sharply, once, and moves back forward. Nolan jolts when both Alec and Theo look at him expectantly, and moves back forward, too. Between the two of them, finally, they manage to get Theo back on his feet, the three of them stumbling forward again.

Nolan tries to steer them instinctually towards the stairs down to the basement, and back to the side door that Theo had originally brought them through, but Theo stops him with a shake of his head.

“I think Monroe and her cronies are already going to know we were here,” he says dryly when Nolan looks over at him, confused. Nolan flushes, but Theo’s tone—for all that it’s amused—isn’t sharp.

They head for the front door. The TV is still on in the living room—there’s a beer bottle tipped over on the couch, and a giant wet spot on the cushions, apparently left from when the hunter had leapt up at hearing the commotion upstairs—but no other signs of life besides that. Except—except there _is_ , Nolan realizes; there’s a cell phone vibrating frantically on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Nolan swallows, and moves faster.

They manage to get out to Theo’s truck without major incident, though Alec _does_ have to catch Theo again—practically taking his whole weight—when Theo’s legs give out again on their way down the porch steps. Theo’s muttered _thanks_ is more than a little grudging, but he does _say_ it, and this time when Alec goes to readjust Theo’s arm over his shoulder, Theo helps, best he can.

“Nolan,” Theo pants out, once they’ve all three collapsed against the side of his truck.

He spends a few seconds digging around in one of his pockets for his keys, and then swears when—as he’s pulling them out—something long and white falls out. Nolan darts down, and picks up Josh’s bone, and holds it back out without a word. Theo takes it—his fingers shaking and black-bloody—with an unreadable expression, and then he drops his keys into Nolan’s still held-out palm.

“Drive,” he says finally. “Just get us on the road, and away from here.”

Nolan nods, sharply, and takes the keys.

As he’s pulling open the driver’s side door, he hears Theo order Alec, “You, in the backseat.” He’s expecting Theo to circle around, then, to the passenger seat, but instead Theo just follows Alec through the back door that Alec opens; Nolan catches Alec’s panicked, confused look in the rearview mirror as Theo is slamming the door shut behind himself. But Theo just snaps, “Nolan, _drive_ ,” and Nolan doesn’t have time to worry about whatever Theo’s planning; he makes a high, startled noise and gets the truck started, and pulled out onto the road.

Still, he spends the next few minutes alternating between watching the night-dark road and glancing back at Theo and Alec in the rearview, Alec having shoved himself as far as he could get into the opposite side of the backseat from Theo. For his part Theo just seems to mostly ignore him, ducking down to retrieve what turns out to be a small black case from under the seats, and fumbling it open.

And then he pulls a _gun_ out from his jacket pocket.

“Theo, what—” Nolan starts to gasp, while in the backseat Alec sucks in a high, harsh breath, but Theo just snaps, “ _Drive_ , Nolan,” and doesn’t explain.

But then he doesn’t have to. He slides the gun’s magazine loose and then tosses the rest of it onto the seat next to him. Nolan watches in the rearview as he tries, several times, to work a single bullet loose from the magazine—his fingers shaking bad enough that they keep slipping off—before he finally succeeds, and catches the single bullet as it pops into the air.

He tosses the magazine away, then, too, and holds the bullet in one hand as he unzips the case. Nolan can’t see what’s inside but Theo winds up shoving _something_ at Alec as he orders, “Hold this,” and then there’s a confusing run of sounds—a metallic scrape, the tapping of what sounds like the edge of the bullet against something _else_ metal, and the click of a _lighter_ , of all things—and then there’s a sudden flash of fire and a pungent reek of smoke.

Alec starts to cough. “Crack a window,” Theo tells him shortly. “And lean back, don’t breathe it in.”

Nolan glances back just as Alec does as instructed, and then he jerks and nearly swerves them off the road when Theo suddenly gives a pained shout and collapses back against the back seat, panting.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Theo reassures him, though since he’s gritting it out between these huge gulps of air, it’s not the world’s most convincing. Still, after a second of meeting Theo’s pain-glazed—but _clearing_ —eyes in the rearview, he turns back forward.

And then he really _does_ swerve them off the road, because Theo suddenly lunges up, and twists sideways, to pin Alec to the side of the door with his clawed hand around Alec’s throat.

_**Theo** _

“Theo, what—!” Nolan shouts, the truck jerking to a lurching, gut-tightening stop on the shoulder of the two-lane highway.

Theo ignores him. “Who’s the alpha now?” He snarls at Alec, his eyes flaring and his mouth filling with fangs.

Alec just stares at him, wide-eyed and with his chest—pinned to the door by Theo’s—heaving with his short, terrified breaths. “What?” He stutters out. “What are you, I _don’t—_!”

“Theo!” Nolan yells again, and starts to twist around in the driver’s seat to get a hand in the back of Theo’s jacket.

Theo just shrugs him off. “Who’s the _alpha_ now?” He repeats, and tightens his fingers around Alec’s throat.

“I don’t _know!_ ” Alec shouts back, his voice breaking. “I don’t, I _don’t_ …”

“Theo, stop it!” Nolan shouts, and this time gets both of his hands in the back of Theo’s jacket, and _pulls_.

It’s enough to yank Theo off of Alec, at least temporarily. But Theo just whips around snarls at Nolan, loud and furious, and Nolan startles backwards so hard and so fast that he cracks his head on the driver’s side window.

Theo ignores the way that the sight—and sound—makes guilt flare hot and violent between his ribs. “The comatose alpha is _dead_ by now,” he explains tightly. “Which means Monroe’s fucked-up pack has a _new_ alpha. And if whoever-it-is is _with_ her, or close enough by that she can get to them and _brand_ them, then she can reestablish control.” He twists his head back around to glare at Alec. “She can reestablish control of _him_.”

Alec pales; apparently that thought hadn’t occurred to him. And judging by the way that Nolan shudders out a quiet, shaky breath, it hadn’t occurred to him either.

Locking eyes with Alec, Theo leans back in, and—one clawed hand braced on the window by Alec’s head, and one braced directly on his chest—he repeats; quietly, deadly, “Who’s the alpha now?”

Alec freezes the second Theo’s clawed fingertips touch his chest. Behind Theo, Nolan sucks in a sharp breath and lurches forward again, but he doesn’t try and get his fingers back in Theo’s jacket; he doesn’t try to pull him off again.

“I d-don’t,” Alec starts to stammer, but then he squeezes his eyes shut, his brow furrowing with concentration. “Monroe,” he says, and then starts to explain, “the woman who’s the, the leader—” He opens his eyes and apparently catches the impatient look on Theo’s face, and realizes he doesn’t need to explain after all. “She never had us all together at any one time, really. We were—were pretty spread out.”

“You don’t know who the other werewolves are,” Theo realizes, and bites off a silent swear.

Alec shakes his head. “There’s a—a pressure at the back of my skull. But it’s not like before, it’s not like—” He cuts off, looking terrified.

“Like inside the house, when you attacked us,” Theo fills in, fairly positive that he knows where Alec had been going.

Alec nods, after a hesitant, pregnant pause. “I couldn’t help it, before,” he whispers. “I’m, I’m really sor—”

Theo jams the heel of his palm harder against Alec’s chest, warning him off; Alec’s teeth snap shut so fast and so hard that Theo hears them click together. He stays up close in Alec’s space, leaned over him with his hands still clawed and still braced one on the window and one on Alec’s chest, and searches his face. Alec isn’t _lying_ , Theo knows that—he’d hear it in his pulse, or smell it on his skin—but Alec’s also only a few weeks old, as a werewolf; that pressure at the back of his skull could mean anything, or nothing.

Right up until it meant _something_. Right up until it meant that Monroe had reestablished control over the pack.

“Shit,” Theo curses, and leans back. “Shit, _fine_. We can—we can figure something out. How to deal with it,” _with you_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say, “if Monroe _does_ brand the new alpha. Nolan,” he orders, dismissing Alec for the moment. “Nolan, switch with me, we need to—to—”

He blinks. His vision is swimming, he realizes. It’s _been_ swimming. He slaps out a hand, trying to steady himself on the back of Nolan’s seat, but he misses; his hand slams down onto the console instead as he starts to fall.

“Theo?” Nolan asks, concern turning his voice high and thready.

“I’m fine,” Theo snaps. “I’m—”

But even as he says it he can feel his breath freeze and then stutter loose of his chest, all in an uneven rush. His heart is pounding irregularly, too; too fast and then too slow, arrhythmic. Theo tries to brace his other hand on the cushion of the seat next to him, and misses _that_ , too; he only stays half-upright because Alec grabs his arm, and holds on.

“What’s wrong with—” Alec starts to ask over Theo’s head, the question clearly directed at Nolan, just as Nolan says, “Theo, what’s _happen—_ ”

But Theo can’t answer; he manages to draw one last shaky breath, and then nothing.

Then darkness.

_**Nolan** _

“Theo!” Nolan yells as Theo falls.

Alec’s hand around Theo’s arm doesn’t do much to stop Theo’s collapse, except cause Theo’s sudden dead weight to twist awkwardly around as his body tumbles into the footwell between the front and back seats. Alec swears and starts trying to tug him back up, but Nolan winds up all but shoving him aside—practically throwing himself between the gap between the driver’s and passenger’s seats—until he can kneel over Theo’s prone body, get his hands—his _shaking_ hands—around Theo’s face.

“No, no, no,” Nolan begs. “C’mon, Theo. _Please_.”

But Theo doesn’t wake up. His eyelashes flutter and he lets out a loose, rasping breath, but he _doesn’t wake up_ , and his skin is deathly pale, and clammy; Nolan’s fingers keep slipping in their holds around his face.

“What’s wrong with him?” Alec asks softly from above him; he’d wedged himself as far back into the corner of the backseat as he could to give Nolan room.

“I don’t—I don’t _know_ ,” Nolan answers desperately.

Biting off a helpless curse, he rears back some and starts running his eyes over Theo’s slumped body, searching, like he could somehow tell what’s wrong just by _looking_. But, _there_. Lunging forward, Nolan pulls the blood-soaked fabric—ignoring his own squeamish wince—away from Theo’s stomach, so that he can see where the hunter’s bullet had struck him.

 _Oh, god_ , he thinks, staring down at it.

The wound itself is gone—the skin and flesh of Theo’s stomach unbroken—but there are spider-webbing black lines crawling out from where it _must_ have been, reaching and reaching and reaching.

“He’s still poisoned,” Nolan realizes, his breath starting to come panic-fast. “He’s still—he’s still poisoned. Whatever he did to try and heal himself, it didn’t _work_.”

Alec makes a soft, sympathetic noise. Nolan squeezes his eyes shut and can’t help curling over Theo’s unconscious body, his forehead pressing _hard_ against Theo’s breastbone. _He’s going to die_ , some hysterical part of Nolan’s mind thinks, and then: _he’s going to die because I insisted we go into that cabin_.

Nolan has to bite off a sudden sob.

“Nolan,” Alec says urgently, and gets a hand on Nolan’s shoulder.

 _Nolan. Hey, Nolan! Are you even listening to me?_ Theo had said, the two of them in some _other_ random restaurant; they’d all started to blur together for Nolan, after a while. _Listen to me, okay? This is important. If something happens while we’re out here, while we’re doing this. If something happens…_

Don’t panic, Theo had said. I don’t care what’s happening, or how hopeless the situation seems.

 _Don’t panic_.

Nolan straightens up. His face feels hot and there might be tear-tracks on his cheeks; he scrubs the back of one of his hands impatiently underneath his eyes. “We have to call Scott,” he decides. “He’ll know—he’ll know what to do.”

“Who’s Scott?” Alec wonders, but he might as well be addressing the question to the air around them for all that Nolan pays attention to it. Instead Nolan gets his hand in his pocket, and pulls out his phone. But:

“Oh, no,” Nolan breathes, and looks down at the cracked and broken screen of his phone. He tries clicking a few buttons, but the screen doesn’t so much as flicker. The case _itself_ is broken, he realizes; it’s practically snapped in half already. _Theo threw me against that wall to get me out of the way_ , he remembers, and feels hysteria surge once more hard and fast up his throat, threatening to strangle him.

 _Don’t panic_.

“Where’s your phone? Give me your phone,” he orders Alec, throwing his to the side.

Alec just blinks at him. “I don’t…Monroe didn’t let me—let _us_ —have them. She said,” he stops, and swallows. “It doesn’t matter what she said,” he concludes quietly, and grimaces apologetically.

 _Damn it_ , Nolan thinks, gritting his teeth, but. _Don’t panic_. He sits back even further—ignoring the flush that wants to rise on his cheeks as he realizes that he’s practically _straddling_ Theo—and presses his palms to first one of Theo’s hips, and then his other. He can feel Alec’s confused, questioning gaze on the top of his head as he watches, but Nolan ignores it; his fingers bump up against the hard rectangle of Theo’s phone in his right pocket and lunges forward to start working it free.

It lights up when he lifts it, thank god. He’s leaving streaks of Theo’s black blood across its face as he fumbles it into his hands, but he forces himself to shove that aside, and holds the screen towards Theo’s face.

“Help—help me,” he orders Alec, and it only takes Alec a second to realize what he means; he scrambles forward until he can tip Theo’s face gently towards the phone.

It vibrates angrily, at first. “ _Shit_ ,” Nolan swears, and repositions it. He holds his breath for a moment, but after a second the color of the reflected light on Theo’s face changes; it’d unlocked. Nolan yanks it back, and around, his eyes running over the screen as he searches for Theo’s contacts app. He taps into it and scrolls quickly down to the _Ms_.

Scott answers _fast_. “Theo? What the hell, you’re like an hour and a half late in checking in, are you—”

“Scott,” Nolan cuts in, his voice breaking on Scott’s name. “Scott.”

“Nolan?” Scott replies immediately, and then there’s a sudden burst of frantic static on the line, like Scott had suddenly straightened up or put the phone on speaker or both. “Nolan, what is it, where’s—”

“Scott, I messed up,” Nolan finds himself confessing. “I messed up so bad.”

It hadn’t been what he’d meant to say, but it bursts out of his throat before he can stop it. Theo had _told_ him. He’d _warned_ him. _I can’t search the cabin without getting caught_ and _watch you_ , he’d snapped at Nolan. And even _before_ that, when Nolan had first shown up at his motel, high on adrenaline and determination and what Nolan had been so convinced at the time was _righteousness_ , he’d looked at Nolan and sighed and said, _this is probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done_.

“I’m so sorry, Scott,” Nolan apologizes, and it’s half a sob. “I’m sorry, I’m so—”

“Nolan, _slow down_ ,” Scott orders, and there’s something _extra_ in his voice; something that makes Nolan’s words dry up and his jaw snap shut. “I’ve got Argent and the Sheriff here, too, we were—” He starts to say, and then cuts himself off. “It doesn’t matter. Tell us what happened, okay? Start from the beginning.”

And so Nolan does. And then: “And now Theo won’t wake _up_ , and there are these black lines spreading underneath his skin, and I think, I _think—_ ” _he’s dying_ , Nolan thinks, but can’t bring himself to say.

“Jesus,” he hears the Sheriff mutter, while something slams _hard_ against a wall or a table or _something_ ; Nolan jumps, and Argent murmurs _Scott_ , soft and sympathetic but also chastising.

“What do I _do?_ ” Nolan begs, all the composure he’d managed to dredge together shattering, _don’t panic_ be damned. “Please, I don’t know what—”

“Go to the sheriff’s station,” the Sheriff suddenly cuts in. There are a few dragging seconds of silence, like he and Argent and Scott are all trading looks, and then the Sheriff repeats, “Go to the sheriff’s station. The local sheriff is a friend of mine. I’ll call, give her a heads-up. Tell her—tell her you’re witnesses to a crime, or something, have her take you and Theo into protective custody until we can get there.”

“And Alec,” Nolan adds, unthinkingly. “Alec, too.”

There are a few seconds of surprised silence. “Who the hell is Alec?” Argent finally asks.

“Um, hi,” Alec offers, just as Nolan says, “He’s—he _was_ —one of the werewolves under—under Monroe’s control.”

Nolan realizes how bad it sounds the second it’s left his mouth, but it’s too late; Argent and the Sheriff and Scott all start talking—yelling, really—over each other. Nolan grimaces, and squeezes Theo’s phone a little tighter in his hand, and darts a guilty look up at Alec, who shrugs and grimaces right back.

Argent’s the one who eventually ends the argument, and he does it by snapping, “Well it doesn’t really matter _now_ , does it?,” the sharp statement meant not for Nolan and Alec, but for the Sheriff and Scott. And then he exhales out a harsh, rough breath, and apparently moves on. “Noah’s right about going to the police, but you can’t go to the station.”

“What, why?” Scott interjects.

“You think she’ll be watching it,” the Sheriff realizes; Nolan can’t see Argent nod, but he can picture it.

“It’s what I’d do,” Argent answers quietly. “It’s what—it’s what my father would have done.”

Another few long, silent seconds drag themselves by, Theo’s phone growing hot against Nolan’s ear, and then Argent speaks again.

“Noah, can you—?” The Sheriff must understand what Argent’s asking for, because he says _yeah, hang on_ , and then _okay, got it_. “Nolan,” Argent orders, “this is the number you need to call. It’ll get you directly to the local sheriff, not the standard emergency line. They’ll be able to send somebody to you. Get somewhere safe, call, and then _wait_ , okay? Wait for whoever they send to come get you.”

“Okay,” Nolan agrees, and makes shaky eye contact with Alec as he does. “Okay. Give me the number, I’m ready.”

_**Theo** _

Theo wakes up in darkness.

 _Shit_ , he thinks muzzily; the wolfsbane from the hunter’s bullet must have been in his system long enough to do some serious damage. Letting his eyes slide back shut, Theo concentrates on taking in a few deep breaths, on letting his senses stretch out; looking for Nolan, looking for clues as to where he _is_.

And then his eyes snap open.

 _What_ , he thinks, horror and adrenaline starting to replace the cottony-feeling in his head. _No_ , he thinks. _No, no, no_. He brings a shaking hand up, and lifts it slowly, lifts it higher in front of his face until he can’t, anymore, because his fingertips hit something solid, and immovable.

Something solid, and immovable, and metal.

“No,” Theo says aloud. “No, no, no.”

He twists around and scrambles frantically forward. In his haste he practically crashes right into something _else_ solid and immovable and metal, but he ignores his stinging shoulder and head and just slams a hand forward, once and then again, until the barrier gives. But he underestimates his own momentum in his panic and the second it disappears, he tumbles forward, out and a few feet down to the ground.

But.

“No,” he breathes, collapsed onto his side and staring down at the pattern of the floor below his body that he _recognizes_ , instantly and viscerally.

The pattern of the floor in Beacon Hills Memorial’s morgue.

 _No_ , Theo thinks, staring down at it. _No, I can’t be back here. I can’t be back here_. He scrambles to his feet, wincing when his—his _bare feet_ —touch the cool floor. He glances around frantically, but there’s no mistaking it; it’s Beacon Hills Memorial’s morgue, sallow in the low, sickly lighting, and so achingly, _horrifyingly_ familiar.

“No,” Theo repeats. “No, this _can’t—_ ”

 _Liam pulled me out_ , he thinks. _Liam broke the sword_.

“This can’t be real,” he breathes. He means it to be a statement of fact but it comes out shaky, like a question; like a prayer.

He runs.

He runs, and searches the hospital, racing from one room to the next looking for Nolan, for Melissa, for Scott, for Liam, for—for _anyone_ , but there’s nothing. There’s _no one_. And then…

 _Theo_ , a raspy voice murmurs. _Theo_ , long, and drawn out, and almost lyrical.

Theo freezes, his hand outstretched to try to open the main doors. His shoulders start to heave as _fear_ lances through him, quick and unstoppable. _Theo_ , the voice whispers again, closer and closer still.

 _No_ , Theo thinks. _No. Liam pulled me_ out. _Liam broke the_ sword.

He steels himself, and reaches forward for the door. _It’s going to open_ , he tells himself firmly. _It’s going to open, and I’m going to leave, and go find Nolan, and Scott, and—and Liam. It’s going to open_.

It doesn’t open.

“Theo,” Tara says, close enough now that Theo can hear her wet footsteps squelching on the floor. Theo stares at her in the reflection of the glass doors, her water-logged hair and deathly-pale skin and her cracked-open, gory chest.

Tara puts her hand through his ribcage with him standing just like that. Theo doesn’t even bother to move.

_**Nolan** _

“How is he?” Alec asks quietly, stood outside the truck and looking in at Nolan perched on the edge of the backseat, Theo laid out next to him.

Nolan dabs a little more at Theo’s clammy brow with the edge of his sleeve, and then—after a second’s hesitation—pokes his knuckles out and curls them so that he can press their backs to Theo’s forehead. “Not good,” he answers, in barely more than a whisper. “He’s burning _up_.”

It isn’t going to do him—or Theo—any good, but Nolan can’t help it: he shifts so that he can carefully lift up first the heavy woolen blankets that he’d pulled out of the metal storage container in the back of Theo’s truck, and then Theo’s still blood-soaked sweatshirt and shirt. _Should we take these off?_ Nolan had asked Alec desperately, when they’d been trying to get Theo settled on top of the backseat rather than in the footwell. _He’s so cold and they’re—they’re_ wet, Nolan had said, forcibly ignoring the fact that they were wet with _blood_ , but.

But they’d left them, because Alec had said _I don’t know_ , and neither did Nolan, and Nolan—he’d made enough mistakes for one night.

Underneath the fabric the snaking black lines are still visible under Theo’s skin. Only now they’ve crawled further, reached farther—the tips of them just starting to brush the lines of Theo’s ribs. And not just _that_ , but. “Oh, no,” Nolan breathes, and touches light fingertips to the thick, tangled mass of black sitting just off-center of Theo’s stomach, marking where the hunter’s bullet had struck him.

And then he jumps. “Hey,” Alec says quietly, soothingly, his hand on Nolan’s arm; he’d half-clambered into the backseat to be able to reach. “Hey, c’mon. You’ve done everything you can. Don’t—don’t—” _torture yourself_ , Alec doesn’t say, but Nolan hears it anyway.

Nolan swallows, and lowers the wet mass of Theo’s ruined sweatshirt and shirt back down, and spends a half-minute or so resettling the blankets over and under Theo’s body.

Alec’s waiting outside the truck when Nolan finally hops down, his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed pointedly on the horizon. Nolan can’t help the flicker of a smile that lifts his lips, there and gone, weirdly touched by Alec’s attempted solicitude. Biting his lip, Nolan turns so that he can carefully push Theo’s truck door back closed, and then leans back against it, shivering.

He realizes Alec’s glancing at him uncertainly the next second. “What?” He wonders, and Alec colors and immediately looks away when he realizes Nolan had caught him.

“Sorry,” he mutters after a second. He sneaks another glance at Nolan. “Sorry,” he repeats. “It’s just, you’re cold?” He might have meant it as a statement but it comes out as a question, and Nolan tips his head curiously, granting the point. Alec grimaces, probably at himself, and looks away as he says, “It’s just…We, we run hot, you know.”

He leaves it at that—just that complete _non_ -explanation—but he also shifts, just a little. A little _closer_. All at once Nolan gets it.

This time it’s _Alec_ who jumps when Nolan shifts to press their shoulders together. Nolan immediately colors and moves back. “Sorry, I should have—sorry.”

But Alec just follows him, one hand reached out to lightly brush Nolan’s arm as he says, “No, it’s—!” He stops when Nolan does. “You just surprised me. Here,” he offers, and settles back against the side of the truck. “Here, c’mon.”

He looks a little silly—he’d twisted himself a little oddly with the way that he’s trying to offer up his shoulder and arm—but instead of amusement Nolan just feels something _tight_ twist in his chest. Blinking his eyes against the hot sensation that flares at their corners, Nolan moves slowly, carefully back in, until he can settle himself against Alec’s offered arm.

His shivering stops almost immediately, Alec’s warmth bleeding into him. “Thanks,” he murmurs quietly. Alec doesn’t say anything, just quirks him a small smile and leans a little more firmly against him.

Suddenly feeling the need for a distraction, Nolan pulls Theo’s phone out of his jeans’ pocket. The screen lights up at the movement and Nolan grimaces, pulls his sleeve down over his fingers to try and scrub at some of the streaks of Theo’s blood still marring its face. He manages to get most of it—he manages to get most of it because it’d finally _dried_ , and started to flake—and after he’s done he just holds it in his hands, tilting it this way and that and staring down at the generic wallpaper; Theo had never personalized the background, apparently.

And then something occurs to him.

“Wait,” he says, shock and dismay and a little self-beratement scrubbing his tone clean. “Wait. Do you—do _you_ need to call someone? Tell them where you are, that you’re—”

“No,” Alec interrupts quietly. He darts another look at Nolan and winces when he catches whatever look must be on Nolan’s face; Nolan tries to wrestle back control of his expression, arrange it back into something neutral. “Foster kid who aged out of the system,” Alec explains after a second, and leaves it at that.

“Oh,” Nolan says, stupidly, but what he’s really thinking is: _that probably isn’t a coincidence_.

Monroe had always had an eye for the outcasts.

“She said it was an experiment,” Alec suddenly says; Nolan jumps a little and looks at him in surprise. Alec shoots him another of those ducked, careful looks, and explains, “She, um. She said she’d had trouble with some of the older werewolves she’d turned. That they were harder to control. She’d thought maybe—maybe younger werewolves would be easier.”

Nolan stares at him. He thinks, unbidden, of the time he’d sat in Monroe’s office as she’d said _we can talk about what happened in the library, if you want. About the animal attack._

He thinks of Gabe.

“Yeah,” Nolan finally mutters bitterly. “Yeah, I bet she did.”

Alec looks at him curiously, but doesn’t ask. After another few seconds he looks away again, and shrugs; Nolan can feel Alec’s arm move against his own. “It didn’t work with me, though. Not really,” he quirks Nolan a barely-there, self-deprecating smile. “Apparently I didn’t have the right _temperament_ for what she wanted me to do. For—for—” _killing_ , Nolan fills in silently. “Anyway. That’s why I was at the house.”

He laughs suddenly, the sound of it more than a little hiccuping and devoid of all actual humor.

“She said that at least I could, I could _be a distraction_. Buy—buy the people with the _right_ temperament some time.” All at once the humor—strained, and bitter as it had been—drops away from Alec’s face, and he sneaks a look not at Nolan but at the door behind Nolan; past it, really, to Theo shot and poisoned and dying inside. “I guess she was right,” he finishes softly; more than a little shakily.

“I didn’t have the right temperament either,” Nolan suddenly tells him. _Confesses_ , really. Alec jerks to stare at him in surprise.

Flushing, Nolan goes to open his mouth to say _something_ , though he doesn’t know _what_ —an explanation, or a joke, _something_ —but then there’s a sudden swing of bright light across both his and Alec’s faces, momentarily blinding him. _Headlights_ , he realizes: Sheriff Amelia Mendoza’s promised deputy arriving.

He snaps his jaw shut, and tucks Theo’s phone hurriedly into his jacket pocket as he surges forward, towards the cruiser pulling into the gravel parking lot of the State Park entrance that Sheriff Mendoza had directed them towards. Alec follows more slowly.

He stops a few feet away as the deputy—there are _two_ , he realizes, and feels himself frowning through the windshield at the second, unexpected deputy—parks the cruiser, and shuts the engine off. Alec reaches his shoulder and stops, too, just as the two deputies both open their doors, and step out.

“Nolan?” The driver—the woman—calls. “Nolan Holloway?”

“Yeah,” Nolan says, “Yeah, that’s me,” and starts to take a step forward. Except he _can’t_ , suddenly, because Alec had snapped out a hand and grabbed his wrist, and dragged him to a stop.

Nolan stares back at him in confusion, but then his attention jerks back forward as the female deputy says, “Good, that’s good. I’m so glad we found you.”

She pushes her door back shut, and starts to come forward. The second deputy—a male—does the same.

Confused by the second deputy and confused by Alec’s behavior, Nolan drags his gaze back to the female deputy, meaning to ask—ask _something_ , ask anything, but then he stops, surprise blanking his mind. Her hand is on her gun, Nolan realizes. He’s still staring at her fingers resting on the holstered handle of it when Alec suddenly speaks up.

“He sent you?” Alec asks, and Nolan frowns, reflexively thinking _who’s ‘he?’_ “Sheriff Mendoza sent you?”

The female deputy smiles. It’s probably supposed to be a soothing smile, but it’s too toothy; too stretched-wide. “Of course he did,” she agrees, and Nolan freezes. “He’s really worried about you, wants to get you back safe.” She looks at Nolan. “Is this your friend Theo? I thought you said he was sick.”

Alec’s fingers around his wrist are tight enough to bruise. “I, um,” Nolan stammers, his mind _racing_ , but absolutely none of the stray thoughts he manages to catch are _helpful_. _Sheriff Mendoza is a woman_ , he just keeps thinking, over and over again.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the male deputy— _not a deputy!_ , Nolan’s mind just shrieks—suddenly says, and draws his gun.

But Alec had already started moving. He shoves Nolan back with one hand and _lunges_ for the male deputy, and he’s fast enough—Nolan watching in stunned surprise from his place on the ground, having tripped over his own feet when Alec had pushed him—that he manages to catch the man before he can get his gun up.

They hit the hood of the cruiser, the man’s head slamming back against it as they fall, and Alec yells, “Nolan, _run!_ ”

Alec and the man slide off the hood in a tangled, scrabbling mess, and none too soon; the woman—snarling out a curse, and turning away from Nolan—had drawn her gun, too, but her shot misses Alec’s back as Alec and the man fall. She curses again and starts lining up for another shot—her gun wavering as Alec and the man roll around in the dirt, Alec’s hands still wrapped around the barrel of the man’s gun—and Nolan feels _terror_ go bolting through him, fast and visceral.

 _No_ , he thinks, and starts frantically glancing around, _desperate_. Almost instantly he spots something and all but _seizes_ on it, twisting around on his hands and knees so that he can lunge for it, arms outstretched.

And then he scrambles to his feet—the fake female deputy too absorbed in firing off another unsuccessful shot to notice—and _slams_ the rock he’d found against the back of her head.

She goes down instantly, her limbs sprawling loosely around the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Nolan stands over her, panting and stunned, and then his head jerks up just in time to see Alec finally win the wrestling contest he’d been having with the man; Alec rips the gun away from the fake deputy, and _cracks_ it across the man’s face.

Alec stays poised above the man for another few seconds, but then he suddenly scrambles up, and back, the gun falling from his hands to fall heavily into the dirt. “Oh, oh my god,” he mumbles, sounding sick.

Nolan surges forward until he can crash into Alec’s back, stopping him just seconds before he would have tripped over the unconscious female deputy. It’s not the smartest thing he could have done—Alec jolts back forward and whips around, flare-eyed and fanged-mouth—but it works; Alec sucks in a sharp, startled breath, and the shift drops away from his face like a curtain getting yanked back.

“C’mon,” he gasps, and reaches forward for Nolan’s wrist again. “C’mon, we have to _go_. I can hear—I can hear more engines coming, I think there are more hunters on the way.”

“How did—how did you _know?_ ” Nolan demands, panting, as Alec starts running back toward Theo’s truck, his hand still around Nolan’s wrist and dragging him along.

Alec doesn’t answer right away. They all but slam into the driver’s side door of Theo’s truck, and he rips it open, and starts hurriedly shoving Nolan inside. Nolan goes automatically, and then _keeps_ going, clambering over the center console and into the passenger seat just as Alec climbs in behind him, and yanks the door shut. Alec starts looking frantically around and Nolan realizes what he’s looking for, pulls the keys out of his pocket and slaps them into Alec’s hand.

“They smelled like blood,” Alec finally says as he gets the truck started, and throws it into reverse. “Like blood and—and wolfsbane.” He gets them backed out of the spot, and shifts into drive before putting his foot _down_ on the gas pedal; the truck _leaps_ forward. “I think…I think they stole those uniforms and that cruiser from the actual deputies that Sheriff Mendoza sent,” he concludes quietly.

Nolan flinches. “Okay,” he says, practically stuttering it out as his tongue trips its way around the adrenaline still filling his blood, his hands starting to pat down his pockets. “Okay, I’ll call Scott and the others. I’ll call them, and they’ll know—”

And then he freezes.

“Alec. Alec, _stop!_ ” He yells, and then has to catch himself as he goes crashing into the dashboard as Alec obeys.

“What?” Alec is gasping. “Nolan, what is—”

“Theo’s phone,” Nolan explains, whipping around to stare helplessly out of the back windshield at the parking lot behind them. “It’s gone, I must have _dropped it_ …”

And then he trails off, horrified. “Alec,” he breathes.

Nolan can see Alec’s brow furrow out of the corner of his eye, and then Alec turns around to look, too.

“Oh, shit,” he breathes, and then he turns back around, and takes his foot off the brake, and _slams_ it down on the gas, sending the truck roaring forward, and away from the several sets of headlights pulling into the parking lot they’d just fled.

_**Theo** _

Theo wakes up in darkness.

He doesn’t even have to open his eyes to know it. He can _feel_ it in his bones, in his blood; in the sickly way that the sound of Tara’s heart beating in his chest echoes in the morgue drawer.

So he doesn’t bother to open his eyes at all.

Tara finds him just like that. She opens the morgue drawer’s door, and slides out the table, and still Theo doesn’t open his eyes. She circles around the end of the table one wet, horrifyingly squelching step at a time, and still Theo doesn’t open his eyes.

She rests her hand on his chest, just over his— _her_ —beating heart for a few long, syrupy seconds; Theo can feel the damp, clammy weight of it as his lungs expand, and retract.

She reclaims her heart with him lying just like that, and still Theo doesn’t open his eyes.

_**Nolan** _

Nolan is so focused on holding Theo’s unconscious body in place that he nearly misses it when Alec finally brings the truck to a stop, and shuts the engine off.

But he doesn’t miss it. “Alec, what—?” He asks, glancing up and around in confusion from his place crouched in the footwell between the front and back seats, his hands on Theo’s shoulders; Nolan had had to scramble into the backseat to keep Theo from falling the first time that Alec had taken a corner too fast to try and lose their pursuers.

“We’re running out of gas,” Alec explains apologetically, twisting around in the driver’s seat so that he can grimace at Nolan.

“Oh,” Nolan says, and slumps back into the footwell, his hands falling away from Theo’s body. “Oh, right.”

He drags his gaze up to meet Alec’s. Alec looks right back. “What do we do?” He asks quietly after a moment.

Nolan just shakes his head. “I don’t—I don’t know,” he answers blankly. “I don’t…”

He covers his face with his hands.

 _Don’t panic_ , he tries telling himself. But whatever force the mantra may have had before, it’s gone now; Nolan can feel hysteria writhing in his gut, starting to claw its way up his throat. _Theo is dying,_ the little voice in his head says instead. _You lost the only connection to help you had_ , _and Monroe’s people are scouring the county looking for you_.

Nolan bites back a sob, and hunches further into himself.

“Nolan,” Alec tries, and starts to lean forward towards him; Nolan can hear the seat creaking underneath him. “Hey, Nolan—”

 _Nolan_ , Theo had said, and Nolan had recognized the scholarly tone and groaned. Theo’s lips had twitched, but he hadn’t stopped. _This is important_ , he’d said, and Nolan had mumbled something like _it’s always important_ , but then he’d slouched down in his seat, and glared balefully—but silently—at Theo.

If something happens, Theo had said. If something happens to _me_ …

Nolan straightens up, suddenly, his eyes going wide and his breath hitching in his chest. Alec makes a startled, questioning noise but Nolan ignores him, and instead scrambles up to lean over Theo’s body until he can reach his left wrist, and pull it out from underneath the blankets, and up. The leather of Theo’s bracelet gleams in the weak light filtering in through the windows from the streetlights lining the road, smooth and dark and marked with strange, jagged runes.

Nolan stares at it for a few seconds, and then he whips his head around to look at Alec. “Do you know where we are? I mean, do you have _any idea_ where we are?”

Alec grimaces. “On—on the outskirts of town, I think? The eastern edge, since we were just by the State Park, but…” He shakes his head. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “I’m not really from around here.”

But Nolan just turns back to his fingers wrapped carefully around Theo’s wrist; to his fingers just barely brushing Theo’s bracelet. “I—I think that’s okay,” Nolan tells him, his mind racing. “I think—”

He doesn’t bother to finish, just lowers Theo’s arm carefully back down—making sure to tuck it back underneath the blankets—and then scrambles back over the seats until he can drop back into the passenger seat. “Nolan, what—” Alec tries to ask, but Nolan just ignores him. _Has_ to ignore him, too afraid that if he stops to try and explain he’ll lose his momentum. That he’ll lose his _hope_ , sitting high up underneath his breastbone; the barest thread of possibility.

 _If something happens to me_ , Theo had said, and smoothly ignored Nolan muttering, _I really wish you’d stop saying that_ , and instead had balled up the paper wrapper that’d covered his straw and had thrown it at Nolan’s head. _If something happens to me_ , he’d repeated, right over the top of Nolan protesting and flailing backwards as the little paper ball had nailed him between the eyes, _and you don’t have any way to call for help—_

Has the Internet disappeared? Nolan had snarked, annoyed. Has every cell phone in the world suddenly broken? _What an idiot I’d been_ , Nolan thinks, now, stuck in Theo’s truck in the middle of nowhere with no phones and no tablets and no Internet. He grits his teeth, and shoves the self-blame aside, and reaches forward for the glove compartment; it drops open with a muted _thunk_.

 _—you have to stop running. You have to find some place that you can stay put, and stop running_ , Theo had concluded that day at whatever restaurant they’d been at, just completely ignoring Nolan’s sarcastic asides. That’d been a strange enough instruction that Nolan had stopped, and looked up at him, frowning. _But wouldn’t that mean getting caught?_ Nolan had wondered. _Staying in one place, and not moving, and all._

Not all movement is good, Theo had answered. Not all forward momentum is progress, he’d said.

 _You have to give them time to find you. Scott and the others. You have to stop, and give them time and the opportunity to find you_ , he’d explained, to Nolan’s skeptical expression.

 _What, by like scent?_ Nolan had replied idiotically, and Theo had barked out a laugh. _You_ said _I don’t have any way to contact them, no phones or Internet or whatever, so how—_ , Nolan had started to demand, incensed, but Theo had just plonked his left elbow down on the table between them, and had held up his left wrist.

 _They aren’t going to be looking for you,_ Theo had said. _They’re going to be looking for_ me _._

“Here,” Nolan says, pulling the paper map out from the glove compartment and starting to unfold it with shaking fingers; panic and adrenaline both. He twists over some so that the map is half-draped over his lap and the center console, spread out between himself and Alec. “If you’re right, then we’re like…” He pauses, one finger tracing around the map, searching; searching.

“Here,” Alec murmurs, apparently catching on. He taps again at the place he’d pointed to. “Around here, or just about.”

Nolan runs his eyes over the map. Then: “Here!” He exclaims, pointing. “Can we make it to here, you think?”

Alec leans down, closer over the map. Then he frowns, and looks back up. “To a commuter garage?”

“They always have cars in them,” Nolan explains. “Because of—of people working overnight, or leaving their cars there when they travel, or—or whatever.” Theo’s words in Nolan’s mouth, strange and only half-remembered until now.

“You want to hide,” Alec realizes.

Nolan swallows. “We have to stop running,” Nolan says. He tries to state it, firm and with conviction, like Theo had that one day, but his voice still shakes. “We have to stop—we have to give them the chance to find us. The—the people I called before, Scott and the others,” he explains to Alec’s furrowed-brow look. “They were already coming to get us, and by now they’ll have realized that something’s wrong, that we didn’t make it to the sheriff’s station. So we just have to—have to give them time and the opportunity to find us.”

Alec just keeps frowning. “Okay, but _how?_ ” He demands. “We don’t have any phones for them to track. Can they look for the truck, or—or something?”

Nolan shakes his head. “They’re not going to be looking for us. They won’t be looking for us,” he corrects, all in a rush; _hope_ tightening his throat just as much as his panic had before.

He looks back at Theo, still unconscious and silent and _dying_ in the backseat; he looks towards his left wrist, hidden once more under the blankets.

“They’re going to be looking for _him_.”

_**Theo** _

Theo wakes up in darkness.

He eases his eyes open, and exhales out a shaky breath, and stares sightlessly up at the top of the morgue drawer. He can’t hear Tara yet, either her low, lyrical voice softly singing his name or the viscerally wet sound of her footsteps, but he knows that she’s out there.

Knows that it’s only a matter of time.

He thinks about staying right where he is, about forcing Tara to open the morgue drawer, and pull out the table, and walk around the end of it to his chest again, if she wants her heart back so badly. There’s a petty, vicious kind of satisfaction to the thought—to the malaise, and fatalism of it—but…

But he’d already stolen her heart, and her life. He can’t bring himself to steal this from her, too.

He climbs slowly out, and down, from the morgue drawer. Even with his conviction his muscles still feel stiff, and reluctant, and it takes _effort_ to keep himself moving forward; to keep himself walking towards his own death, temporary as it may be.

But he makes it, eventually, and starts to straighten up off his knees, ready to climb to his feet. But then he looks up, and freezes.

“Josh,” he breathes, shaky and disbelieving.

Josh stares down at him, Tara stood just behind his right shoulder. His skin is deathly pale and his eyes are sunken, with dark, purpled bruises underneath them.

There are five bloody puncture marks marring the fabric covering his stomach.

“Josh, I’m so—” Theo starts to say, reflexively starting to rise to his feet as he does, but.

But Josh just snaps out a hand, and crushes it around Theo’s jaw. Theo freezes, half-crouched and staring up at Josh through wide, helpless eyes.

Josh just stares back at him for a long, stretched second—Tara behind him just watching, watching, watching—and then he says, “Those were mine,” low and flat and affectless.

“Wha—” Theo starts to reply, confused, but then he stops, because the shape of his _mouth_ feels wrong, overfull. His tongue brushes up against his teeth and his eyes snap impossibly wide, because the fangs sprouting from his gums are too long, too pointed.

 _Not his_.

“Josh, _please_ ,” Theo pleads, the words coming out garbled and wrong through the unfamiliar shape of his mouth, but Josh just reaches forward with his free hand, and wraps his fingers around one of Theo’s— _not mine, not mine_ —fangs.

And then he pulls.

_**Nolan** _

It’s freezing in the parking garage.

It probably has something to do with all the concrete, Nolan has no idea, but it means the truck cab gets _cold_ , and gets cold _fast_. He grits his teeth, and concentrates on tucking the blankets more firmly under Theo’s body, trying to keep him warm. He ignores the fact that he’s shivering himself, and hard enough that he has to keep his jaw clenched tight to keep his teeth from clacking together.

But even over the sound of his own harsh breathing, and grinding teeth, he still hears it when Theo mumbles something as Nolan leans over him to tuck the blanket further under his far shoulder.

Or he hears _something_ , anyway.

“Can you—can you hear what he’s saying?” He asks Alec, and looks up.

Alec—huddled into the passenger seat with his hands buried underneath his arms—glances back and then frowns lightly, and closes his eyes. He blinks them back open again a few seconds later. “Tara, I think? It sounds like Tara.” He flicks his eyes over to Nolan’s. “Who’s Tara?”

Nolan just shakes his head slightly, and frowns down at Theo. “I don’t know,” he answers softly.

Letting it go, he finishes making sure that Theo is as tightly wrapped in the blankets as he can be, and then climbs slowly back into the front seats. He shudders _hard_ when he sits, the fabric of the cushions _cold_ , and Nolan brings his hands up to blow into his cupped palms, before rubbing them together and then burying them in his jacket pockets.

He spends a minute or two just staring out into the canopies of the trees he can see bordering the parking garage. There must be some kind of breeze outside because the branches are waving gently in the wind, though Nolan can’t hear it; Alec had wedged Theo’s truck in between a large white service van and another, equally massive truck, all the better to try and hide it from anyone glancing in at the garage from the road, and they seem to be acting as some kind of barriers. Watching the slowly undulating wave of leaves is a little hypnotic, and it isn’t long before Nolan feels his eyelids growing heavy, and his head starting to nod.

But.

“How long do you think it’ll take them to find us?” Alec suddenly asks.

Nolan jolts back fully awake and glances over at him, and then frowns; there’s something off about Alec’s expression, the edges of it pulled taut and Alec’s eyes fixed intently ahead, though Nolan—doesn’t think Alec is seeing whatever he’s technically looking at.

“I don’t—I don’t know,” Nolan answers after a few, hesitant seconds. “It’s already been a few hours, and Beacon Hills isn’t _that_ far away, so…” He trails off, and squints at Alec in the relative darkness. “Alec, what’s—”

But he cuts himself off, because where before Alec’s eyes had dropped to stare down at his fingers twisting together in his lap, Alec abruptly twists into motion, leaning over into the backseat.

“Alec!” Nolan protests, confused and a little alarmed, but Alec just ignores him, for the moment; Nolan can hear him digging around, clearly looking for something.

When he leans back, Alec is holding the dissembled pieces of the gun that Theo had stolen off the hunter in the cabin. Nolan stares.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Alec starts to explain, his voice quick, and a little breathy; manic. He starts to reassemble the gun. “About—about what Theo said, about Monroe maybe being able to reestablish control over the pack, and therefore—therefore me.”

He finishes reassembling the gun, and shoves it at Nolan, who jerks backwards, and cracks his head against the driver’s side window as he does. Alec flinches, but keeps holding it insistently out.

“Take it,” he pleads. “Just—just in case.”

Nolan stares at him. “You can’t be…You want me to _shoot you?_ ”

Alec winces, and then dredges up a shaky smile as he attempts to joke, “Well, not _right now_ , no.” He trails off, his eyes on Nolan’s face—on Nolan’s horrified expression—and swallows. “Nolan, please. I don’t—I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re _not_ ,” Nolan argues back automatically. “You—you won’t. You wouldn’t.”

But Alec is already shaking his head. “You don’t _know that_. I didn’t,” he stops, and sneaks a look back at Theo. “I didn’t necessarily want to hurt _him_ , either.”

Biting off a small sound, he reaches forward and captures one of Nolan’s hands, and presses the gun into it. Nolan tries to jerk away without taking it but Alec doesn’t let him, his other hand finding Nolan’s free hand, and bringing it over to press it down on top of the top of the gun, so that it’s cradled between Nolan’s hands cradled between Alec’s.

“Nolan, please,” he repeats, barely more than a whisper.

Nolan swallows, and wraps his fingers hesitantly around the stock of the gun. Alec must feel it because he slowly takes his own hands away, leaving it behind. His fingers are shaking, Nolan realizes, staring at them. Alec sits back against the passenger seat, and gives him a shaky smile.

Nolan’s chest clenches.

“Okay,” he says, his voice shaking. “Okay, well. I have it now, so.” He reaches forward and pops open the middle console, and hurriedly slides the gun inside.

Alec makes a frustrated noise as Nolan goes to close the console, and stops him. ”Nolan,” he chastises, and picks the gun back up, and holds it back out.

“Alec,” Nolan complains, just as frustrated, but Alec just holds the gun out even more insistently.

“Just—on you,” Alec requests. “Please.”

Nolan frowns, but. Biting his lip, he reaches forward and takes the gun again, and then slowly brings it back closer in front of himself. He stares down at it for a few seconds, and then exhales out in a rush, and wrestles the gun into his jacket pocket.

“Satisfied?” He demands, more than a little incensed.

Alec just gives him a shaky smile and says, “Yeah,” and Nolan feels all his anger—which, as it evaporates, reveals itself to be _fear_ —disappear. He jerks his eyes away, and looks back out of the windshield.

And then he shivers.

“Nolan,” Alec murmurs. Nolan looks over at him, and Alec bites his lip.

And then he lifts an arm up, and out; an offer.

“It’d be pretty sad if we survived all of this only for you to die of hypothermia before we can get rescued,” Alec jokes, but his voice trembles a bit, and his expression spasms with uncertainty.

Nolan hesitates for a split-second longer, and then he crawls slowly forward. Alec’s face blanks with surprise for a second, but then he gives a small _oh_ and scrambles up, a little more; making room for Nolan as Nolan finishes approaching. Quirking him a small, shaky smile, Nolan twists around so that he can put his shoulder to Alec’s, tentatively settling against it. Alec smiles just as shakily back and wraps his arm around Nolan’s opposite shoulder, the weight of his arm a warm, comforting brand across Nolan’s back.

It helps, for half a minute or so, and then Nolan shivers again. Gritting his teeth, Nolan turns his face unthinkingly against Alec’s chest, and then freezes. He jerks back.

“S-sorry,” he stammers. “Sorry.”

But Alec just tightens his fingers around Nolan’s arm, and keeps him from going too far. “It’s okay,” he hurries to say. “It’s, you can…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, just touches his tongue to his bottom lip and then shifts, again; turning his body a little more towards Nolan.

Opening up the center of himself, his other arm spreading in invitation.

“Um,” Nolan says, but.

But after a moment, he moves forward, and then twists again so that he can put his back to Alec’s chest. He shudders almost immediately, Alec’s heat feeling like it instantly engulfs him. Alec’s arms—which he’d brought around to wrap around Nolan as Nolan had settled back—reflexively tighten around him, and Nolan shivers again, and helplessly burrows a little further back.

“Thanks,” he mumbles after a moment.

“No—no problem,” Alec replies, and unintentional as it may be, winds up murmuring it almost directly into Nolan’s ear.

_**Theo** _

Theo wakes up in darkness.

He wakes up with a jolt, already panting, the remembered sight and sound and _feel_ of Josh— _reclaiming_ his fangs bolting through him. But his mouth feels normal, his teeth blunt and human and his _own_ , as far he can tell. Squeezing his eyes shut and dropping his head back down, Theo arches his neck back and concentrates on breathing; just breathing.

Eventually it slows, and Theo can think past the metallic taste of fear and adrenaline coating the back of his throat. He swallows, once and then again, to try and get rid of it, and then he eases his eyes open, and stares sightlessly up at the dark of the drawer.

 _I can’t_ , he thinks. _I can’t go back out there_. He remembers the conviction he’d felt the last time he’d woken up, the hard knot of certainty sitting up underneath his ribs that he couldn’t—that he _wouldn’t_ —hide in here from his sister, from what he’d _done_ , but.

But his chest just feels hollow, now, that conviction gone like Josh’s fangs from his mouth.

 _I want to go home_ , he thinks suddenly, helplessly, his mind filling with the memory—the _fake_ memory, apparently, the fever-dream that his traumatized brain had dredged up—of his apartment in Derek’s building, filled with its former-McCall-house furniture. He thinks of Nolan curled up on the couch, and Liam sitting kicking his feet on Theo’s table, or kitchen counter, or wherever he’d perched himself as he’d followed Theo around, poking and prodding both physically and verbally at him.

 _Please_ , he thinks. _I want to go home_.

And then his eyes snap open, because—because _could_ he? His breath hitches in his chest as he stares sightlessly up at the top of the morgue drawer, and then he twists around, and hurries forward, out of the drawer.

He moves throughout the hospital, thinking, thinking. All the times he’d tried to escape before, Tara had always, _always_ found him. But sometimes it’d taken _longer_ than others.

Maybe—maybe once it’d taken long enough that Theo could slip into his hallucination, or his fever-dream, or whatever.

It’d _had_ to have taken long enough one time to allow Theo to slip into his hallucination, or his fever-dream, or whatever.

 _C’mon,_ he thinks, looking for a place to hide. _C’mon_.

Tara finds him, eventually; of course she does. But Theo still feels _hope_ burning in his chest, even as Tara is driving her hand through it. _Next time_ , he thinks, even as she’s ripping her heart free; as he’s choking; as he’s falling. _Or the time after that_.

He has all the time in the world to figure it out, after all.

_**Nolan** _

Nolan wakes up from his half-doze with a jolt because Alec does, Alec suddenly going rigid at his back, so stiff with tension that he’s practically vibrating with it.

“Nolan,” he breathes, his eyes wide as he turns his head to meet Nolan’s, and Nolan _gets it_ , instantly and viscerally.

He lunges for the driver’s seat, the keys purposefully left slotted into the dash. The truck roars to life a half-second later and Nolan has thrown it into reverse within the other half-second, but it doesn’t matter; he has to slam on the brakes just as fast to stop from crashing into the hulking SUV that pulls in perpendicular behind them, trapping them only halfway out of their parking spot.

“No, no, no, no,” Nolan chants helplessly, glancing frantically around, but there’s nowhere to _go_ ; forward is the concrete barrier of the parking garage wall, and behind them are—are the one, two, three, _four_ cars that all screech to rubber-burning stops around the middle lane of the garage, surrounding them.

He looks desperately at Alec, who looks just as desperately back. And then he sees Alec’s eyes widen and his mouth start to open in warning the second before Nolan’s door rips open, and someone reaches through and grabs a hold of him.

“Ah!” Nolan cries out as whoever-it-is clenches a hand in his hair, and uses the grip to drag him backwards.

His hands fly up to grab at the person’s wrist, but he can’t do much else but hold on as his body tumbles from the truck; the only reason he doesn’t hit the ground is that his captor wraps their other arm around his chest, and hauls him up against themselves.

“Hey, Nolan,” Rossler whispers against his ear, and tightens his fingers in Nolan’s hair and his arm like a steel band around Nolan’s chest, compressing Nolan’s ribs. “Long time, no see.”

Nolan’s breath freezes in his lungs.

Across the cab someone else had given the same treatment to Alec, and for a moment Nolan feels a surge of hope in his chest as Alec’s eyes flare and his mouth fills with fangs. But it turns to ash the next second, because Alec’s captor’s eyes flare—flare _blue_ , and they snarl just as fiercely back at Alec, and slam him against the side of Theo’s truck, holding him there with one hand pressed _hard_ to the back of Alec’s head. Nolan manages to make a split-second of panicked eye-contact with him, and then they’re both dragged back, and then to the side.

“Nolan,” a soft, silky voice greets as Rossler throws him onto the ground in the middle of the circle of people that forms.

Alec is thrown down next to him a half-second later, landing hard on his hands and knees. Nolan can see Alec darting a look at him from the corner of his eye but he can’t move, his eyes frozen on the ground. But it doesn’t matter, because Monroe just crouches gracefully down in front of him, and then uses one hand to tip his chin up; Nolan feels his breath freeze in his chest as he sees just the very edges of a set of raised brands on her forearm, disappearing into her shirt.

“I must say, hearing you were involved in this little fiasco was a surprise,” she murmurs, and smiles at him. “Theo Raeken is one thing, but _you?_ ” She tsks. “What are you doing so far from home?” All at once her hand twists around to grab his jaw _hard_ as her expression tightens. “So far from _safety_.”

Nolan just stares at her, his throat too tight to speak and his bracing arms shaking hard enough that they’re threatening to collapse. Monroe studies his face for a few more seconds, and then her expression and her grip both gentle again. She releases his jaw, and straightens back to her feet.

“Rossler,” she orders; Nolan can’t help the whimper that drags loose of his throat as Rossler steps back forward and gets a hand in the back of Nolan’s collar, and drags him backwards against Rossler’s legs.

Alec attempts to snarl at him as he does it but almost immediately several guns snap up in the hands of the other hunters in the circle, pointed directly at him. But Nolan doesn’t think it’s the guns that cause Alec to freeze; it’s the three blue-eyed werewolves dotted throughout the circle that snarl right back at him. _They’re still bound_ , Nolan realizes in horror.

Monroe ignores all of the byplay with cool aplomb. She frowns. “Speaking of, where _is_ Mr. Raeken?” She wonders instead, and looks down at Nolan, still pinned against Rossler’s legs.

Nolan swallows, and says nothing.

But it doesn’t matter. “He’s here,” another one of Monroe’s hunters calls; Nolan can hear the click of one of Theo’s truck doors opening, and then the groan of the hinges as it swings wide. “He looks dead already,” the hunter opines, and Nolan jerks against Rossler’s hold; Rossler just yanks him back harder, half-choking him on his collar.

“Get him out,” Monroe orders.

The hunter swings his gun back behind himself on his strap, and reaches into the backseat for Theo.

“No,” Nolan protests helplessly. “Stop, don’t—!”

But Rossler not only yanks him back harder, but hauls him _up_ enough that he can lean down, and get his mouth up against Nolan’s ear. “Watch it, Nolan,” he murmurs, and over the sound of Nolan choking on the pressure of his collar against his throat. “Gabe isn’t here to protect you this time.”

Nolan’s eyes go wide, and he can’t help freezing. Rossler laughs, low and mean, and lets him collapse back down onto his knees, though he keeps his hold in the back of Nolan’s jacket, and shirt; twisted tight, and just on the edge of strangling him.

The hunter manages to slide Theo’s body out of the backseat, and lets him fall less-than-gently onto the ground by the truck. “Jesus,” he comments, clearly disgusted, his eyes on the black blood leaking from Theo’s mouth and his deathly pale, almost _translucent_ skin.

Monroe has no such compunctions; she kneels down next to Theo’s body and tilts her head clinically as she studies his face. Humming thoughtfully to herself, she gets a hand in the blankets Nolan had wrapped around him and pulls them off, and away, her eyes riveting on the blood-soaked mass of the fabric covering Theo’s stomach. Her lips twitch, pleased.

“Well look at that, everyone,” she announces. “Looks like Anders wasn’t such a failure after all.” There’s a roll of low, malicious laughter from around the group, but Monroe doesn’t stop there; she pushes up the bloody fabric to get a look at Theo’s skin. “Ah,” she murmurs. “He tried to heal himself.”

She twists around on her heels to look at Nolan. “He used one of the bullets from Ander’s gun, didn’t he?” Nolan doesn’t answer, but Monroe just smiles benignly at him. “Mhm. But see, I know that quite a few of these over-evolved _dogs_ know that trick. So my bullets are special—they’re made with wolfsbane, mountain ash, _and_ mistletoe.”

Around the circle, the three blue-eyed werewolves shift their weight on their feet, their expressions tight, and unhappy. _The insult_ , Nolan realizes. _They’re mad about the insult_. But they don’t move, or say anything. _They’re still bound_ , Nolan realizes again. _But the alpha is_ dead, his mind protests helplessly. _How are they still_ bound?

Monroe frowns at Rossler. “What’d he say?”

Rossler smirks, and jostles Nolan against his legs, making him stutter out a startled, pained sound. “He’s wondering how our blue-eyed friends are still bound.”

Monroe smiles, wide and bright and pleased. She stands, leaving Theo on the ground as she walks back over to Nolan. “You think I didn’t have a back-up plan in place, in case something happened to my alpha?” She asks him, low and insinuating and riding just the edge of _insulted_. “You think I’d leave that to _chance?_ ”

She jerks her chin up, her eyes flicking around the circle of hunters.

“Show him,” she orders.

All of the hunters laugh again, but three in particular take half-steps forward, and push up the sleeves covering their right forearms. Nolan stares at the brands marking their skin, raised and pale white and so very _stark_ in the sallow lighting of the garage. And then Monroe slides a hand into his hair, and yanks his head back so that he’s forced to look up at her.

She’s not smiling, anymore.

“Make no mistake, though, Nolan,” she tells him softly, and Nolan feels _fear_ slide like ice down his spine. “I did have to kill several of my pets when you and Theo killed my alpha, and I’m _very_ unhappy about that.”

Her hand is still in his hair, and it tightens hard enough to hurt; Nolan bites his lip _hard_ to keep from making a sound. Monroe watches him, and then all at once she gentles her grip, and strokes her thumb over his skull.

“You’ll make it up to me, though, won’t you?” She murmurs, and Nolan feels his expression spasm with confusion; Monroe smiles, the curve of it deceptively gentle. “I think we’ll bind you to Rossler, what do you think?”

Nolan can feel his eyes widen in horror as he realizes what she means. He can barely hear Rossler’s low, pleased, _throaty_ laugh, Rossler’s hand tightening in his collar and pulling Nolan back more completely against his legs. Monroe slides her hand out of Nolan’s hair, and chucks it up underneath his chin, instead.

“And your new friend Alec here can be bound directly to Preston, maybe,” she proposes thoughtfully. “Useless as he’s turned out to be, it’d be silly not to bind him to _someone_. Waste not, want not, and all that.”

And then her lips twitch downward, and her eyes flick over to Theo.

“It is a shame about Raeken,” she murmurs. “He would have been quite the addition to my collection. Ah, well. McCauley,” she orders, as she drops her hand away from Nolan’s chin, and starts walking away, towards the cars, “put Raeken back in his truck, and leave him.”

“No!” Nolan gasps, but can’t say anything more; Rossler yanks on his collar to silence him.

Still, Monroe glances back at him, and smiles. “You,” she says softly, “have a date with my new alpha. As do I,” she concludes, and grins wider, and returns to giving orders. “Rossler, Nolan can ride with you. You three,” she motions to the three blue-eyed werewolves, “get Alec, and keep him _under control._ He’s caused me enough problems, as is.”

Alec snarls as three werewolves start to approach him, but Nolan doesn’t think it’s _intentiona_ l; he thinks it might be cornered-animal _fear_ , Alec scrambling backwards on his hands and heels. “Alec,” he cries helplessly, but then he chokes as Rossler yanks him backwards, and onto his feet, using the hand he still has wrapped tightly in Nolan’s collar.

“C’mon, Nolan,” Rossler says, pulling Nolan backwards and pressing himself forwards so that Nolan is held tightly to his front. “You and me have somewhere to be.”

But the sudden movement causes Nolan’s heavy jacket pocket to bang painfully against his hip, and his eyes widen. A shrill voice starts immediately trying to shriek a warning in his head, panic and adrenaline saturating his system, but Nolan—

He shoves away from Rossler hard enough, and fast enough, that Rossler loses hold of him in his surprise, giving Nolan just enough time to yank the gun Alec had forced him to take out of his pocket, and get it aimed squarely at the back of Monroe’s head.

Everyone freezes: the hunters; the werewolves wrestling Alec into submission; Rossler.

Monroe.

She turns her head slowly around to look back at him, her eyebrows rising. “Nolan,” she says, sounding exasperated; exasperated, and nowhere near afraid.

“Tell them—tell them to let Alec go,” Nolan orders her shakily. “Tell them to let Alec go, and tell—tell _him_ ,” he jerks his chin towards McCauley, half-bent over and with hands underneath Theo’s slack arms, “to let Theo go.”

Monroe just turns around to face him fully, her expression amused. “And then what, Nolan? You’re a little outnumbered.”

“Maybe,” Nolan agrees, his voice still trembling. “But I’m the one with the gun on you, aren’t I?”

Monroe makes a considering expression, and shrugs. “I suppose that’s true,” she allows, and then her eyes sharpen on Nolan’s face. “But are you really expecting us to believe that you’ll shoot me, Nolan? You’ve already proven,” she points out silkily, “that you don’t have it in you.”

Behind Nolan, Rossler laughs. Some of the other hunters do, too—some of the other hunters that Nolan recognizes from Beacon Hills—and Nolan feels himself flush, shame curdling in his gut.

But he keeps the gun pointed right between Monroe’s eyes.

“Maybe,” he starts, and then has to swallow around his dry throat. “Maybe that’s because I was never pointing a weapon at a _real_ monster, before.”

Monroe recoils slightly, and then her expression darkens, all the sharp, pointed amusement that had suffused it before dropping away. “Maybe so,” she murmurs, low and deadly. “But it still wouldn’t do you any good. Put the gun down, Nolan.”

“Tell them to let Alec and Theo go!” Nolan just repeats, practically yelling it now.

“Nolan—” Monroe says.

“Do it, Monroe!” Nolan yells.

But Monroe just shakes her head, back to being exasperated. “This is ridiculous. Rossler—”

And it’s the surprise, and the _fear_ , as Rossler starts to reach for him—more so than anything intentional—that causes Nolan’s fingers to spasm around the gun. To spasm around the _trigger_.

There’s the sound of a gunshot, and all hell promptly breaks loose.

_**Theo** _

Theo wakes up in darkness.

But he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t _care_. He hurries out of the morgue drawer, and starts making his way through the hospital. Hiding on the roof hadn’t worked last time—hadn’t given him enough time, apparently, to slip back into his hallucination, or fever-dream, or whatever—but maybe the stairwell. Maybe the cafeteria.

Tara finds him before hiding out at the nurse’s station on the fourth floor can work, either, but Theo just tips his head back, and exhales out shakily, as she drives her hand through his chest.

 _Next time_ , he tells himself.

Next time.

_**Nolan** _

Nolan drops the gun reflexively as the parking garage _explodes_ with noise.

 _Oh, my god_ , he thinks, dropping to his knees and covering his head instinctively as several additional shots ring out, as werewolves snarl, and roar; as voices start to yell, the words lost in the cacophony.

Or lost in the cacophony at _first_.

“Drop it! I said _drop it!_ ” Someone orders, and Nolan recognizes that voice.

“Don’t even _try it_ ,” someone else warns, their tone half a rumbled _growl_ , and Nolan’s arms fall away from his head as he looks up, disbelieving, as both the figurative _and_ literal dust starts to clear, and a ringing silence takes its place.

He looks up, and winds up looking directly at Scott, and the Sheriff, and Argent; at Liam and Derek and Parrish and the rest of Scott’s mismatched pack, along with a half-dozen or so uniformed deputies, all of them poised over the prone or kneeling bodies of Monroe’s people.

Over the prone body of _Monroe_ , Monroe laying flat on her back and choking on a mouthful of blood; Nolan can see the red staining her lips even from where he is.

Nolan’s jaw drops open as he stares, stunned beyond thought, or words.

And then someone yells his name, and Nolan jerks his attention to the side just in time to see Alec break loose of—of _Derek’s_ hold, Derek and Parrish apparently having taken charge of subduing the three blue-eyed werewolves. Derek snarls and makes a grab for Alec as Alec darts away, towards Nolan, and Nolan realizes with a jolt what he must think.

“No!” He shouts. “No, it’s okay. _It’s okay_ , he’s—”

Derek lets Alec go, seemingly more out of surprise than anything else, and Alec practically barrels into Nolan’s side, his hands coming up to grip his face as he drops down to his knees.

“You okay?” Alec asks desperately. “Please tell me—tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m—I’m okay,” Nolan assures him, voice shaking and his own hands coming up to hold Alec’s around his face. “I’m—” He has to stop and swallow, bile suddenly rising in his throat. “Oh god, Alec, I think I killed her.”

Alec frowns at him, clearly confused, and then his head whips around to look at Monroe. His expression slackens in surprise.

“Oh, god,” Nolan moans, his head dropping forward on a suddenly-boneless neck and his forehead landing _hard_ against Alec’s shoulder; Alec immediately shifts one of his hands around to hold the back of Nolan’s head, instead. He starts to open his mouth—Nolan can feel the movement of Alec’s jaw against the side of his skull—but he doesn’t get a chance to speak, because…

Because Liam suddenly yells, “ _Theo!_ ”

Nolan’s head snaps back up just in time to see Liam go darting through the various clumps of hunters and their captors, Liam moving fast enough that Nolan almost can’t follow the shape of him. Liam snarls at the hunter— _McCauley_ , Nolan’s mind automatically fills in—still frozen on his knees next to Theo’s prone body, one of the Sheriff’s deputies’ guns pressed to the back of his head; McCauley jerks backwards hard enough that he practically falls, and the deputy has to catch him, and haul him over onto his stomach as she holsters her gun, and reaches for her cuffs instead.

But Nolan barely notices all that, because he’s too busy staring at Liam.

“Theo,” Liam breathes as he drops down onto his knees next to Theo’s head. “Theo, no, c’mon,” he says, practically _begging_ , as he carefully lifts Theo’s head and shoulders into his lap, his fingers stroking over Theo’s cheeks, and brow.

Still lying flat on her back, Monroe gives a choked, gurgling laugh. “Might as well say your goodbyes now,” she manages to spit out. “He’s as good as dead already.”

“Shut up,” Scott snaps furiously.

Monroe laughs again, but Nolan forces himself to ignore it. “It was the bullet. She said—she said her bullets were special, that they contained—contained wolfsbane and mountain ash and mistletoe.” Nolan swallows, and looks at Theo’s pale, sickly face. “He tried to heal himself, he tried…”

“No, no, no,” Liam chants desperately, and Nolan trails off. “No, there _has_ to be something. There has to be—”

“There isn’t,” somebody suddenly sneers from behind Nolan, and Nolan jolts and scrambles reflexively away; Rossler barks a laugh, seemingly unbothered by his position with his arms bent and his fingers interlocked behind his head, another of the Sheriff’s deputies behind him with their gun out. Alec snarls at him, one hand still outstretched and on Nolan’s arm.

Liam just looks up at Scott, his eyes pleading. “Scott. Scott, _please_.”

Scott stares back at him, helplessness all over his face, and then he jerks his head around to Argent, to the Sheriff. Argent’s jaw tightens, and he shares his own look with the Sheriff.

“He’s still alive,” Argent finally says firmly. “He’s still alive. It’s not over.”

He swings the gun he’d still been holding—a wicked looking rifle with a long barrel—around to his back on its strap.

“Scott, get Theo, and get on the road back to Beacon Hills. Liam, go with him, and _call Deaton_ , and Melissa. Ask for ideas, treatments, _anything_ ,” he orders. He looks to Nolan, still on his knees on the ground next to Alec. “Nolan,” he says more gently. “Go with them, too. Tell Deaton and Melissa anything you remember about Theo getting hurt, and what Monroe said about the bullet, okay?”

Nolan nods, shakily. Off to the side, Scott had already moved, hurrying over to Theo to lift him off of Liam’s lap; Liam follows automatically, his hands reaching instantly back out for Theo’s head even as Scott is carrying him away. Nolan starts to scramble to his feet, and then stops.

Alec looks back at him. “You, too,” Nolan whispers, and holds out a hand. Alec hesitates for a single, wide-eyed second, and then he takes it.

They get to Argent’s SUV and climb in the last row of seats at the back—Scott having already placed Theo’s unconscious body carefully in the middle row of seats—just as the Sheriff behind them starts ordering, “Alright, let’s go. Start getting all of these people arrested. Argent, the werewolves—?” Nolan hears him ask, and hears Argent say something back, but it’s lost in the slam of the SUV door as Liam climbs in next to Theo—bypassing the empty passenger seat altogether—and gets himself settled down next to Theo; dropping right down into the footwell, one hand automatically reaching up to stroke trembling fingers down Theo’s pale temple.

Still, Scott’s door is still open, so Nolan hears it when the Sheriff says, soft and almost lost in the renewed cacophony of activity, “I don’t know what you’re laughing about, Monroe. You’re not dying here today—that’d be way less than you deserve.”

Nolan finds himself exhaling out a shaky, ragged breath as Scott finally slams his door closed, and gets the SUV started. Beside him, Alec looks back when Nolan looks over at him, and then reaches forward, and slides the fingers of his right hand in between the fingers of Nolan’s left, and squeezes.

Nolan stares at him for a long, startled second, and then he squeezes back.

_**Theo** _

Theo wakes up in darkness.

The next time doesn’t work, either.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a theme in this chapter that I want to go ahead and warn for, just in case. It deals with mental disassociation issues--if you're concerned, see the end note. Take care of yourselves, folks.

**iv. our regret**

* * *

_**Nolan** _

Theo dies twice at the hospital, technically.

“Liam, no!” Scott orders, leaping up to physically block Liam’s path to Theo’s room the first time it happens, his hands on Liam’s shoulders and his heels digging in.

Liam doesn’t even look at him, his eyes riveted past him, like he could see through the wall separating him and Theo. Scott just shoves him back step by step—and he really does have to _shove_ , Nolan realizes, the muscles of his forearms and shoulders standing out—until he can force Liam back down into his abandoned chair in the waiting area.

But not the waiting area at Beacon Hills Memorial.

It’d taken Deaton and Melissa McCall less than thirty seconds after Nolan had called them—scrambling up into the front seat of Argent’s SUV to handle the phone, because Liam had responded to Scott’s gentle request with a heartbreaking, cracking _I can’t_ , his eyes on Theo’s slack, sickly face—to nix Argent’s original plan to have them return to Beacon Hills. _Mr. Raeken won’t make it,_ Deaton had said, apologetic but firm, and Melissa had agreed. _Not with how advanced you said his symptoms have become._

Nolan had snuck a glance back at the skin of Theo’s stomach, the sticky, blood-stiff fabric of his shirt and jacket pulled up by Liam’s shaking hands to reveal the thin, snaking black lines crawling up Theo’s torso from the black mass of it originating from his healed bullet wound. _Take him to Shasta Regional Medical Center_ , Deaton had ordered. _The alpha of the Yreka pack has doctors there who specialize in supernatural cases._

 _What about the packs that—that want Theo dead?_ Liam had cut in hoarsely. _He said, he said_ —

 _Shohreh Khorasani is not so crude_ , Deaton had answered levelly. _She’s also a personal friend. I’ll call her, make the request. Scott_ , he’d ordered. _Take him to Shasta Regional Medical Center_.

 _Okay_ , Scott had agreed, and had.

In Theo’s room someone says, “Normal heart rhythm reestablished,” and even Nolan can hear the steadied, even beat of Theo’s heart-rate monitor pick back up from it’s previous flatline. Liam—one of Scott’s hands still on his shoulder, Scott having dropped into the chair next to him—slumps back down with a shaky exhale. A few chairs away, Nolan sneaks a glance at Alec beside him, who sneaks a look right back, and gives him a shaky smile before burrowing a little harder into his seat.

The second time Theo technically dies, Scott reacts fast enough to snap an arm across Liam’s chest, keeping him down. Liam bites off a harsh, frustrated sound and just _bends_ over Scott’s restraining arm, his hands coming up to cover his face. Scott just leans over and presses his forehead to Liam’s temple; Nolan can see his lips moving, but can’t hear what he’s saying. He thinks Alec might be able to, though; Alec’s eyes fixed probably unintentionally on the sight of them together, his expression blow-open and raw.

But then his gaze snaps sideways, and he leaps immediately to his feet; Nolan jumps, startled, and looks up to follow what had caught his attention.

A well-dressed woman with a lined, patient face steps into the waiting area, flanked on either side by a man in a deputy’s uniform and another woman whom Nolan can’t help but stare at. There’s something unusual about her; Nolan finds it hard to look directly at her.

But: “Shohreh,” Scott greets, jumping to his feet as well and breaking Nolan out of his thoughts. “McPherson.”

Nolan feels himself pale, even before Shohreh’s eyes flare bright, burning red.

But then Shohreh smiles, the red fading. “Mr. McCall, it’s good to see you again.” Her expression sobers, some, as her eyes flick towards Theo’s room. “Though I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Chris and the others are on their way,” Scott hurries to tell her, speaking so fast that his words almost trip one over the other. “They just had to—”

“—finish arresting Tamara Monroe and her band of radical hunters, yes,” Shohreh agrees. She nods towards the man at her side; McPherson, apparently. “Daniel and some additional Siskiyou County deputies are about to go help.”

“Oh,” Scott says. “Oh, thank you.” Nolan doesn’t think he’s ever seen Scott so nervous, or out of sorts.

Still, Shohreh just smiles gently. “First, however, there’s something else we must do.” Her eyes flick to Alec, and Nolan stiffens right along with him.

“But he’s not,” Nolan starts to argue, lurching immediately to his feet. He winds up half in front of Alec, his shoulder brushing his chest, just as Scott says, “I’m sorry, something to do with Alec…?”

“She wants to make sure Monroe doesn’t have any other,” Alec starts to say, and then stops, and swallows, “other surprises in store, when it comes to controlling werewolves. I-I mean, I would think that’s what…?” He starts to stammer, glancing back at her.

Shohreh gently interrupts him. “Yes,” she agrees.

“But he’s _not—_ ” Nolan protests, and finds himself taking another reflexive step forward.

But Alec just grabs his arm, and pulls him carefully back. “It’s okay,” he promises quietly. “It’s okay, I’ll be okay.”

“But you’re _not—_ ,” Nolan argues, turning to look at him. They’re close enough together that Nolan can see his individual eyelashes; the flecks of subtle gold in his irises that could be part of the shift or could just be his part of his human eyes, and Nolan feels his breath catch, a little.

“We don’t actually know that,” Alec counters softly. “We didn’t know she’d bound werewolves to individual hunters, remember?”

Nolan darts a helpless look at Shohreh. “But—”

“And she’s not the only one who wants to know,” Alec interrupts quietly, and physically turns Nolan’s face back to his. He gives Nolan a wobbly smile. “ _I_ want to know, to be—be sure, too.”

He steps away from Nolan, after he’s said it, and looks towards Shohreh. “What—what do you need me to do?”

“This is my emissary,” Shohreh tells him, and nods towards the woman at her side. “She’ll help us sort it all out.”

“Okay,” Alec agrees, and sneaks one final look at Nolan—and Scott, and Liam, still slumped low in his chair, though he’d at least turned his head up to watch—before moving to follow Shohreh and her—her _pack_ , Nolan realizes abruptly, out of the room, and away.

“Hey,” Scott murmurs, once they’re out of sight. He wraps his fingers carefully around Nolan’s forearm, and starts tugging him gently back. “Hey, c’mon,” he says, and encourages Nolan down into a seat, so that when Scott sits back down he’s sitting in the middle of Liam on one side and Nolan on the other.

They wait.

They wait long enough that an entire second wave of McCall pack members arrive, spilling out of the stairwell and into the waiting area in a sudden wave of noise that almost immediately cuts off when Melissa McCall hisses _this is still a hospital, keep it down_. Everyone quiets into whispers after that, Scott jumping up to bury his face in Malia Tate’s hair and Liam barreling into Mason’s chest, Corey reaching forward to put a hand on Liam’s shoulder even as Mason wraps his arms around Liam in a tight, tight hug.

Nolan stays where he is, his hands pulled into his jacket sleeves and his eyes glued to the floor.

But he looks up almost immediately after when a shadow falls across his lap.

“Hey, Nolan,” Argent greets quietly, gently; like he was approaching a spooked horse.

Nolan stares up at him in open-mouthed confusion. “Um, hi.”

Argent grimaces, but it’s—self-directed, Nolan’s pretty sure; it’s the same kind of look that Nolan has seen on Theo’s face when Theo has let something slip that he wishes he hadn’t, or thinks he’s phrased something poorly. Nolan winces as he thinks that, his eyes flicking to the wall separating the waiting area from Theo’s room, and then he jolts and looks back at Argent as Argent suddenly kneels down in front of him.

“Can I see your hands?” Argent requests, and Nolan stares at him.

“My—my hands?” He parrots, baffled, but Argent just nods calmly and holds out his own palms.

So Nolan—after another second’s worth of hesitation—slowly slides his hands free of his sleeves, and sets them carefully in Argent’s.

“Oh,” he realizes, the second he’s looking down at them. The second he’s _really_ looking down at them; his palms are scraped all to hell. He hadn’t even really _noticed_ , but…

But apparently Argent had.

He also reaches forward, after a second, and brushes his fingers back over the side of Nolan’s head, bordering his hairline. Nolan jerks, hard, thinking _ow_ ; the bruise—the bruise he’d _also_ somehow completely missed—throbbing. Argent frowns.

“Melissa,” he calls softly, and tugs Nolan up with him as he stands.

Ms. McCall gets permission from a nurse down the hall, and then guides Nolan—Argent following—to a room, and encourages him up on the room’s bed. “I guess it’s from when Theo,” Nolan starts to stammer out, touching the side of his temple, and then he looks down at his scraped-up palms, “and then Alec, and—and Rossler… I didn’t even _notice_ …”

“Kind of crazy what adrenaline can do,” Ms. McCall agrees gently, and crouches down some so she can shine a light in his eyes; Nolan blinks and flinches away.

She apparently satisfies herself that he doesn’t have a concussion, and then gets his hands cleaned and wrapped up quickly. Nolan thanks her through numb-feeling, stuttering lips, and she smiles, her hand reaching forward to squeeze his shoulder once, but then she steps back.

“I’m going to get back to,” she starts to say, and jerks her thumb over her shoulder; Argent nods, and leans into it when she presses a hand to his chest on her way by.

Nolan looks back down at his bandaged palms. “Um. Mr.—Mr. Argent?” He asks, hesitant but not hesitantly _enough_ , apparently, to clamp his jaw back shut around the question burning in his throat; his chest.

“Yeah, Nolan?” Argent replies, easy and relaxed; still spooked-horse careful.

“Um,” Nolan stammers again, and clenches his bandaged fists closed just as he squeezes his eyes closed. “I know the Sheriff said… But, but I _shot_ her, and it looked bad, and.” He manages to cut off his useless rambling, and swallows, and whispers, “Did I—did _she—?_ ”

“Nolan, hey,” Argent interrupts, and Nolan jumps as he realizes that Argent is suddenly _very_ close; he’d missed Argent crossing the room, apparently. “First off, Monroe is alive, okay? She’s at a different hospital, surrounded by as many deputies as Sheriff Stilinski could round up—not to mention several very motivated supernaturals—getting treated. Like Noah said,” he tells Nolan, his lips flickering in a small smile, “she doesn’t get to die and get off that easy.”

Nolan smiles small and helplessly back.

“And second,” Argent continues finally, his eyes on Nolan’s and searching, “you didn’t shoot Monroe.”

Nolan stiffens. “What? No, no, I _did_. I did, I was holding the gun, and I remember—”

“Nolan,” Argent tries to gently interrupt.

“But I pulled the _trigger!_ ” Nolan insists, high and thready and just entirely unsure why he’s suddenly so worked up about this. “I remember, I. I could _feel_ myself pull the—”

“I’m sure you did,” Argent interrupts, more firmly this time. Nolan’s jaw snaps shut, watching in mute surprise as Argent reaches back for his waistband, and retrieves something tucked into the back of his pants.

He retrieves a _gun_ tucked into the back of his pants.

“This is the gun you were holding,” Argent explains, and pops the magazine to show Nolan the sleeve full of Monroe’s modified bullets. He slides the magazine back into the gun after a second, and twists his grip on it so that he’s holding it out to Nolan flat on his palm. “But you couldn’t have fired it.” He taps a finger at a place high up on the gun’s stock, just underneath the barrel. “See? Safety’s on. Safety’s _been_ on.”

“Oh,” Nolan says, stupidly, still staring at the safety switch. “Oh, so who…?”

“I did,” Argent tells him. “I shot Monroe.”

Nolan remembers, suddenly, the wicked-looking black rifle that Argent had been holding, with it’s long, gleaming barrel. “Oh,” Nolan says again, and swallows. Swallows _hard_. “Oh, I thought I’d...I’d thought I’d shot her. I thought maybe I’d...I’d—” _killed her_ , Nolan thinks, but doesn’t say. He swallows again.

“No,” Argent disagrees. “You did something more important.”

Nolan looks up at him, confused. Argent tilts his head down to fix Nolan with an even more intense, penetrating look.

“You made her believe you would, if you had to,” Argent explains quietly. “You made _you_ believe you would, if that’s what it took to protect Theo and Alec. Nolan,” Argent insists, ducking down to catch Nolan’s gaze again when Nolan helplessly drops his eyes, “you doing that? You forcing Monroe to stop, and stand there while she negotiated with you? That’s what gave me, and Noah, and Scott and the others enough time to finish getting to you, and to do it with the least risk to you and Alec and Theo.”

Nolan stares at him, stunned.

“You saved them, Nolan,” Argent says firmly. “ _You_ saved _them_.” His lips twitch. “And you did it all without firing a shot.”

He lets that statement linger for a few seconds, Nolan barely breathing, and then he holds out a hand.

“C’mon,” he murmurs. “Let’s get back out there.”

Nolan doesn’t move— _can’t_ move—for a long, dragging second, and then he reaches one of his bandaged hands forward, and lets Argent help him down, and off the table, and lead him back into the waiting area; back to the rest of the MCall pack.

_**Theo** _

Theo doesn’t wake up in darkness.

He blinks his eyes slowly open, and turns his head to the side, towards the source of the light. It’s a window, he realizes, the shades drawn and closed to keep what looks like bright morning sunlight out.

He sucks in a sharp breath.

The sound of it is apparently enough to startle someone _else_ awake, and Theo whips his head to the other side as Liam jerks upright from where he’d been curled up in an armchair by Theo’s bed, his hair wild and dark bruises under his eyes. “Theo,” he breathes, as he and Theo lock gazes. “Holy shit, _Theo!_ ”

He scrambles out of the armchair, and over to Theo’s bedside. Theo stares at him, warmth blooming in his chest and spreading out through his limbs, to the very tips of his fingers and toes. His hands get tangled up in the blankets he’s under as he tries to bring them up to reach for Liam as Liam gets close, but he just shakes them free and gets them wrapped around Liam’s face as Liam bends low over him.

“Hey,” Theo greets, smiling helpless and wide. “Hey, it _worked_.”

Liam frowns at him. “ _What_ worked?” He wonders, then: “If you mean Nolan’s crazy-ass plan to hide in a _parking garage_ , then I guess yeah, it did. But if you mean _your_ idiotic plan to go spy on Monroe without getting caught…”

He trails off, squinting at Theo as his eyes rove intently over Theo’s face.

“Theo, are you…?” He starts to ask.

Theo just smiles at him, his fingers tightening around Liam’s face and starting to stroke. He can feel the corners of his eyes crinkling with the force of his curling lips. “I’m great,” he assures Liam, a little drunkenly. Drunk on his _success_. “I’m—I’m better than I’ve been in a long time, I’m—”

He cuts off, rolling his head back upwards on the bed below him as his expression twists, the light pouring in through the windows and the warmth of Liam’s skin beneath his fingers _overwhelming_ after—after everything. He squeezes his eyes shut as he feels them start to burn; as he feels wetness start to gather in their corners.

But: “Hey,” he asks abruptly, turning back to Liam, who hadn’t moved, and is still just staring at him, his brow creased with concern. “Hey, how long do you think I’ll get this time?” He wonders. “I don’t—I don’t even remember where I hid.” He rolls his head back upwards, and frowns at the ceiling; his hands fall distractedly away from Liam’s face. “I wish I could remember where I hid.”

He sucks in a startled breath when Liam suddenly reaches forward, and yanks his chin back around. “What are you talking about?” Liam demands, and the sharp edge to his voice is _fear_. Theo can recognize it; _it’s why you get angry when you’re afraid_. Or he only _thinks_ he recognizes it, he supposes; another fever-dream memory, startlingly real. He reaches back up for Liam’s face.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he promises him, wanting that fear gone. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll get _better_ at it. Get more time, every—every loop.”

“ _What_ loop?” Liam whispers desperately. “Get better at _what?_ ”

But Theo barely hears him. “She—she always finds me, though,” he warns, and strokes his fingers soothingly over Liam’s face. Liam’s expression is so distressed that Theo can’t help it; he pushes himself up in the bed some, so that he can push his forehead against Liam’s own. “But _hey_. Hey, I’ll figure it out.”

Liam just pushes him back, and holds him—his fingers digging _hard_ into Theo’s arms—at bay. “Theo, I don’t _understa—_ ”

Theo just reaches forward again, and pulls Liam back forward—Liam’s bracing arms going slack, and unresisting—as he does. He drops his forehead back against Liam’s. “Just—just not a hospital next time, okay?” He breathes, unsure whether he’s asking Liam or—or himself. He laughs a little, helpless and jagged. “I’m—I’m a little sick of hospitals.”

That jagged feeling in his chest isn’t just laughter, he realizes. He gasps, pain suddenly surging up, and spreading out, through his limbs. He has to drop his hands away from Liam’s face as he bows over the vulnerable core of himself, the heel of one hand coming up to dig at his sternum, trying to hold the pain at bay. _Tara must have found me_ , he thinks, and reaches helplessly forward for Liam again with his other hand; not wanting to _go_ yet.

Liam captures his grasping hand, but he’s also not looking at Theo anymore. Instead his head is turned back over his shoulder, and he’s yelling, “Deaton! Deaton, Ms. McCall! Dr. Osterman, _please_.”

Theo frowns, confused, but the pain is wiping away his ability to think, and he has to fall back flat on his back, gasping. Liam tries to follow him, at first, his hands clutching at Theo’s fingers, at his shirt, at his jaw, but then he goes stumbling backwards as someone shoves him back, and out of the way.

“Something’s wrong,” he tells the white-coated doctor who takes his place; tells Ms. McCall, and Deaton, who appear on Theo’s other side. “Something’s—I think he thinks he’s hallucinating. I think he thinks—I think he thinks this isn’t _real_.”

 _I wish it were real_ , Theo just manages to think past the pain, and the pressure against various parts of his body as the doctor and Ms. McCall lift his limbs, and press at his stomach, and shine bright lights in his eyes. _I wish_ you _were real_ , he thinks at Liam, just managing to turn his head to catch Liam’s eyes, now stood in the circle of Scott’s arms, Scott gently trying to drag him back.

And then he can’t think at all.

_**Nolan** _

Nolan is passed out in one of the empty rooms in the hospital—Melissa McCall’s hands on his shoulders as she’d steered him inside while assuring him that _there’s nothing to do now but wait_ —down the hall, but he snaps to immediate wakefulness when Liam starts yelling.

He makes it back to the waiting area just as the other dispersed McCall pack members converge on it as well, and then his breath catches, because: “Alec,” he breathes; Alec had still been off with Shohreh when Nolan had been firmly _encouraged_ to try and get some sleep.

“Hey, Nolan,” Alec starts to greet, a little shyly, but he gets cut off and talked over when Scott finishes pushing Liam gently out of Theo’s room.

“Liam. _Liam_ ,” Scott is saying, forceful for all that his hands on Liam’s shoulders are careful. “You have to stay out of the way. You have to let them work.”

“You don’t _understand_ ,” Liam argues back, not angry so much as _desperate_. “Scott, there’s something _wrong_. He kept talking like—like he thought this was all a _dream_ , or something. He just kept saying he’d—he’d figure it out.”

Scott’s brow furrows. “Figure _what_ out?”

“I don’t _know!_ ” Liam all but shouts back, his voice cracking down the middle. He covers his face with his hands. “I don’t—he kept talking about _time_. About _loops_. Like he thought he was—was _stuck_ somewhere.” He drags his hands down his face, so that his fingers are left muffling his mouth. “He said _she_ always finds him.”

“She…?” Scott starts to wonder, but then he cuts off and his head snaps to the side, because Nolan…

Nolan had breathed, “Tara,” soft and helplessly.

Liam freezes, and when his head whips around to stare fixedly at Nolan, his eyes are more gold than not. “What did you say?”

Nolan flinches. The movement carries him almost directly back into Alec, who steadies him with a hand on his side. “Um,” Nolan stammers after a second. “He, um. Theo kept mumbling _Tara_ in the—the truck earlier, when we were trying to get away.”

Scott and Liam—and Mason and Corey, and Malia, for that matter—all glance sharply at each other. Then Liam’s head whips back around.

“Are you _sure?_ ” He demands, and now his eyes really _are_ fully gold; Nolan swallows, but stops himself from taking a step back. He glances up, behind his shoulder, at Alec.

“As sure as I can be,” Alec answers softly, and with the smallest of grimaces and an apologetic shrug.

But Liam doesn’t seem disappointed. He’d stopped paying attention to Alec almost immediately after Alec had confirmed Nolan’s claim, his eyes drifting back to the doorway into Theo’s room and the buzz of activity—audible even from the hallway—of the doctor and Ms. McCall and Deaton all working and strategizing and moving; all treating Theo; all trying to keep him alive.

“I need your keys,” Liam suddenly says, and then looks at Scott.

It’s abrupt enough, and a nonsequitur enough, that Scott just blinks at him. “What?”

“Your _keys_ ,” Liam repeats forcefully, and gestures a little wildly towards Scott’s pockets. “Your car keys, Scott. I need your keys!”

Scott has to move back a half-step to avoid Liam’s too-wide, sharp gestures. “I don’t have them,” he reminds Liam. “I rode with Argent, remember? Liam, what is this—”

“There’s no _time_ ,” Liam interrupts, more than a little desperately. “I have to—to get back before he wakes up again. Scott, _please_. Argent’s keys, or—or—”

“Here,” Nolan offers, stepping forward and wrestling Theo’s truck keys from his pocket. “Here, Argent gave these—” _back to m_ e, he thinks, but doesn’t bother to finish, because Liam had surged forward to snatch them from his fingers.

“Wait a minute,” Scott snaps, catching Liam’s arm and dragging him to a stop. “Liam, you’re not—”

“Scott!” Liam interrupts, pleading.

“—you’re not _going alone_ ,” Scott finishes pointedly. He looks at Mason and Corey, stood a few feet away and watching the whole exchange with raw expressions. “Go with him. Please.”

Mason hesitates just a second, glancing back at Corey, and then he nods, sharply. Scott releases Liam’s arm.

Nolan watches along with Scott and Malia and Alec as Liam and Corey and Mason hurry down the hallway. After they round a corner and disappear from sight, Scott turns back to Malia; he presses his forehead to one of her temples as his eyes squeeze shut. Malia turns into the touch, one hand coming up to cradle his jaw as she lets her eyes fall closed, too.

Nolan just glances at Alec, who glances right back, before they both immediately drop their gazes back to the floor.

Eventually they all settle back into the waiting area. Nolan doesn’t even bother trying to go back to the room he’d been sleeping in, and Alec doesn’t go back to wherever he had been. Instead they both settle down in chairs side-by-side, and it isn’t long before Nolan can feel his eyelids drooping, and his head start to fall, blink by exhausted blink at a time, against Alec’s shoulder.

But.

He comes out of his doze sometime later with a sharp inhale, his head coming up off of Alec’s shoulder—and Alec shifting sideways in response, still asleep; apparently he’d fallen asleep with his cheek resting on top of Nolan’s head—as he glances muzzily around. Malia is curled up asleep in a chair in the corner of the room, but Scott…

“Physically Theo is recovering well,” Ms. McCall is telling her son in a quiet whisper, the two of them stood just outside the door into Theo’s room. “But with what Liam said he was saying, we don’t know…” She trails off, and then sighs, rough and frustrated, and shrugs helplessly. “We don’t know.”

Scott nods, the motion exhausted and heavy. “Okay. Thanks, mom.”

Ms. McCall gives him a soft, sympathetic smile, and slides her hands around his face to guide his head down so that she can press a gentle kiss to his forehead. She lingers there for a few seconds—Nolan can see her lips move, but can’t hear what she’s saying—and then she releases her son, and heads back into Theo’s room.

Scott stays where he is, hovering just on the threshold of the doorway, and then he suddenly looks around; looks back, and directly, at Nolan. Nolan stiffens, feeling caught, but Scott just quirks him a smile and jerks his chin in a gentle gesture.

After a second’s hesitation, Nolan climbs to his feet.

He steps up to the other side of the door, and leans against it to look inside, mirroring Scott’s posture. But immediately after he does he has to swallow, because—because Theo is surrounded by wires and equipment, now, a breathing mask over his face, and it reminds Nolan, suddenly and viscerally, of the comatose alpha that Monroe had been keeping forcibly alive.

He doesn’t realize that his heart must have jumped or his scent must have dipped until Scott shoots him a sharp look, clearly concerned. Nolan just shakes his head.

But.

“Scott, can I ask, um,” Nolan whispers after a second, his eyes drifting slowly from Theo’s closed eyelids to Scott’s face. Scott hums in encouragement, so Nolan bites his lip, and then wonders, “Who’s—who’s Tara?”

Scott’s open expression blanks like someone had slammed a door closed. Nolan recoils some in surprise, and Scott almost immediately seems to catch himself, his eyes falling shut and his hands coming up to cover his mouth. He looks back into the room; looks back at Theo.

“That’s not…I’m not sure I should,” He starts to say, very quietly, and then he exhales out, rough and through his nose. He drops his hands away from his face. “Ask him when he wakes up, okay?” He finally suggests, and Nolan—after a beat of hesitation—nods.

 _When_ he wakes up, Scott had said, but what Nolan had _heard_ —what’s he pretty sure Scott had meant, as much as he maybe wishes he hadn’t, is: _if_.

 _If_ he wakes up.

_**Theo** _

Theo doesn’t wake up in darkness.

He blinks his eyes carefully open, and then almost immediately has to squint them back shut against the flood of light coming in through the window; someone had opened the shades, and what looks like bright, afternoon sunlight is pouring in.

Theo frowns, staring at the window. The _same_ window, he’s pretty sure. The same one from when he woke up last time.

 _That’s odd_ , he can’t help but think. Was his brain just—slipping right back into whatever interrupted fever-dream he’d been in before? He would have expected—fragments. Disjointed snatches of stolen time. Whatever brief glimpses of some half-constructed world he could get before being dragged back into the nightmare he was _actually_ living.

Not—not the same dream.

There’s a soft burst of sound off to his other side; Theo forgets the window for a second, and looks over.

“Hey,” he breathes, his face splitting in a wide, helpless smile; all disturbed, vaguely concerned thoughts about the incongruity of his dream flying away.

He’d _take_ this dream, he thinks, his eyes running avidly over Liam’s face, his ridiculous hair tucked behind his ears; it was a good one.

But: “Wait,” Liam hurries to say, before Theo can open his mouth to breathe _it worked_ again, that same desperate warmth filling his chest. “Wait, before you say anything, just—I have something to show you.”

Theo frowns lightly, but he pushes himself obediently up in the bed so that he’s sitting up, more than willing to play along. Liam swallows—Theo can _hear_ it, right along with Liam’s heartbeat pounding rabbit-fast in his ears—and carefully shifts his grip around the small bundle of fabric that he has in his lap. Theo watches as Liam gingerly lifts the bundle up, and holds it carefully in his hands as he slowly makes his way towards the bed.

“Liam,” Theo starts to ask, confused, but Liam just shakes his head.

“ _Please_ ,” he pleads. “Please, just—wait.”

Theo snaps his jaw back shut as Liam leans down to set the little bundle delicately down on the bed next to his side, and then just as delicately climbs up to sit on the bed just below it, next to Theo’s hip. Theo shifts automatically to make room for him, though he can’t stop himself from moving only far enough to give Liam the room he needs to sit; it leaves his leg pressed up tight to Liam’s side, and Theo nearly shudders as Liam’s warmth starts to bleed into him.

Liam doesn’t seem to notice, distracted as he is by starting to unfold the little bundle. “What you were saying before, about—about getting more _time_ , and—and _loops_ , and _her_ always finding you…” His voice cracks; Theo starts to reach forward for him, but Liam just gently catches his hands, and sets them carefully back in his lap. “And then Nolan,” he says, swallowing and picking back up on his story, “Nolan said you were murmuring something earlier, when you first got sick. He said you were saying…”

He trails off. He trails off, and doesn’t pick back up, but as the last of his words finishes fading into silence he also finishes unfolding the little bundle, and Theo feels his breath catch.

He feels his breath catch, and then start to _speed_.

“I don’t know what else to do, Theo,” Liam confesses in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know how else to prove it to you, but you’re _out_. You’re out, and—”

Liam cuts himself off, and Theo can feel his attention burning against the top of his head. But he can’t focus on it, all of his attention _riveted_ on his own shaking fingers as he slowly reaches forward, and touches them to the pile of metal pieces revealed to be inside Liam’s little bundle.

The pile of little metal pieces that used to be something _else_.

“I broke the sword, remember?” Liam reminds him desperately. “I pulled you out of the skinwalker prison to help us catch a Ghost Rider, and then you couldn’t, really, and you were a complete _dick_ about it, and—and—” He seems to catch himself, and drag his rambling stream-of-consciousness back to the point. “And then you had information, but you wouldn’t _tell us_ , not until, not until I—”

“Until you broke the sword,” Theo fills in slowly, his fingers now wrapped carefully around one of the pieces of—of Kira’s broken sword. He looks sharply back up at Liam.

“Tell me you believe me,” Liam begs, staring fixedly at him. “Tell me you—”

But he can’t finish whatever he was going to say. He can’t finish it, because Theo had dropped the piece he’d been holding with a sharp, metallic, clatter, and darted his hands forward to wrap around Liam’s head, and _yank_ him into a too-hard, fierce, close-mouthed kiss.

_**Nolan** _

Nolan leans into Theo’s room, intending just to _check_ —just to see if he’d woken up again while Nolan was across the street at the hotel Ms. McCall and Argent had rented a handful of rooms at, giving Nolan and the others a place to shower, and grab whatever sleep they could—and then he stops.

He stops, and feels a wide, helpless grin take over his face.

On the bed, Theo shifts a little in his sleep, his expression briefly twisting. Curled up tight behind him, his chest to Theo’s back and one arm draped over Theo’s hip, Liam shifts in turn; pressing closer; pulling Theo tighter back against himself. Theo settles almost immediately, his fingers—his fingers spasming lightly on top of a glinting piece of metal laying incongruously on the mattress beside him.

Nolan frowns thoughtfully at the little piece of metal, and then he has to bite off a sharp, startled sound as someone says, “Oh, I guess—I guess he woke up at some point, then,” from directly behind him.

Alec had stepped up close enough to him that when Nolan jumps he winds up elbowing Alec directly in the chest. Alec _oofs_ and steps back a reflexive half-step, one hand coming up to rub at his sternum as he grimaces apologetically at Nolan.

“Sorry,” he mumbles; Nolan flushes, and shrugs.

He also looks back into the room. Alec apparently follows his gaze.

“Is that—is that a new development?” He asks, sounding benignly curious.

Nolan realizes what he means. He bites his lip as he looks at Theo and Liam curled up together, and then feels himself smiling, wide and a little helpless. “No,” he answers, glancing back at Alec. “Not—not really. Just—severely and unnecessarily delayed, more like.”

Alec gives him a strange look, but he must catch the smile on Nolan’s face—or some clue in his scent, maybe—because eventually he just smiles back, and lets his gaze fall away again.

And then he jumps and looks back, startled, because Nolan’s stomach suddenly growls.

“Shut up,” Nolan mumbles, coloring, as Alec laughs, bright and helpless.

Alec quiets fast—darting a look in at Theo and Liam as he does it—and then gives Nolan a lopsided grin. “Well,” he whispers, and reaches into his pocket. “I have,” he spends a few seconds smoothing out the wadded-up dollar bills and counting the change he pulls out, and then concludes, “exactly four dollars, and seventy-seven cents. Want to see what we can get from the vending machines?”

Nolan looks at him for a few seconds, this tiny kernel of warmth blooming in his chest, and then he says, “Yeah,” says, “I’d like that.”

It turns out that four dollars and seventy-seven cents doesn’t go far in Shasta Regional Medical Center’s vending machine economy, and they spend a few minutes haggling over their selections before finally settling down on a bare stretch of wall to share it. When Nolan had first dropped down onto the ground Alec had given him a furrowed-brow look, but then he’d smiled—soft, and a little secret—and had folded down next to him, and pressed his back to the wall at Nolan’s side.

They spend a few minutes trading the single bottle of sports drink they’d selected back and forth, and taking turns dipping their fingers into the bags of cheddar crackers, and miniature cookies that they’d opened and set between them. It’s an easy silence, accompanied by the low, soothing hum of the vending machines, and Nolan finds himself—relaxing, really, for the first time in— _in_ …

“Sixteen hours,” he blurts out, suddenly and without warning; surprising even himself. “Do you—do you realize it’s been less than sixteen hours since—since _everything?_ ” Nolan looks over at Alec, then colors some, and looks away. “I realized when I saw the clock in the hotel room, when I was showering. It’s been…been less than sixteen hours.”

Alec looks at him for a few seconds—Nolan can feel the attention on the side of his face—and then his gaze drifts away, too, out over the rest of the tiny room. “Oh,” Alec murmurs. “No, I—I hadn’t really thought about it. Wow,” he finishes, his fingers crinkling the wrapper around the bottle in his lap as they spasm, apparently.

That kernel of warmth in Nolan’s chest is turning acidic. He squeezes his eyes shut as he brings his knees helplessly up to his chest, his arms wrapping around them as he buries his suddenly-hot face in his legs.

“It was my fault,” he confesses. “All of it. I shouldn’t even have _been here_ in the first place, I just—just thought I had _something to prove_ , and then—and _then_ …” He flinches, and curls a little tighter into himself. “Theo didn’t want to go inside the cabin. He said it was too dangerous, but I essentially called him a _coward_ , and—”

Nolan can’t finish. He presses his face hard enough against his legs that it’s almost painful.

But then he freezes, and slowly raises his head to stare, because Alec whispers, “I’m glad you did.”

He winces immediately after he says it.

“I know that’s a terrible thing to say, it’s—Theo almost _died_ , and,” he cuts himself off, his face flaming and his entire expression just one twisted-up _flinch_. He sneaks a look at Nolan, and then instantly jerks his head away. “But—but if you hadn’t, _I’d_ still be…I’d still be under Monroe’s control, along with all the other bound werewolves.”

He looks back long enough to give Nolan a shaky, apologetic smile, and then quickly looks away again.

“And then, then, you know, at the end there, in the parking garage,” he starts to say, louder and more firmly; but really over-loud, and _too_ firmly, “you with the gun, and threatening Monroe, and it was just…” He trails off. “It was just—really something,” he concludes, and sneaks Nolan a shaky smile before dropping his gaze back to his lap, his lip pulling between his teeth.

Nolan stares at him. “I, uh. I guess it was a good thing you made me take it, then,” he points out, and smiles just as shakily at Alec when Alec looks up at him in surprise.

“Oh, uh,” Alec says blankly. “Yeah, I guess it—”

But he cuts off, mid-sentence, because Nolan had leaned over—helpless and with that former-warmth in his chest, that former-acid, all turned to bubbling, nervous _possibility_ —and pressed his lips to Alec’s.

It’s a quick kiss, and Nolan leans back almost immediately after, his face flaming and _anxiety_ ballooning out from the center of his ribcage, compressing all his organs out of the way. “Um,” he says, more than a little strangled. “Um, sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

And then _he_ cuts off mid-sentence, because Alec had leaned over in turn, and pressed _his_ lips to _Nolan’s_ , one hand sliding into his hair to hold Nolan’s head steady.

“Ow,” Nolan says, as Alec’s fingers brush up against the bruise still sitting high up on his temple, but he’s grinning, wide and helpless, when Alec startles backwards.

Alec searches his face for a few seconds, and then he grins just as wide, and just as helpless, and shifts his grip on Nolan’s head so that he isn’t hitting the bruise anymore, and kisses him again.

_**Theo** _

Theo doesn’t—

Theo wakes up.

He wakes up slow, and warm—over-warm, really—and easy, his eyes flickering open for a brief stretch of seconds before he slowly turns his head back, and around, to look at Liam. Liam’s trying to keep his face blank as he meets Theo’s eyes but he’s failing at it completely, naked hope and naked fear written stark over the curve of his brow and the tense line of his mouth, and Theo winces even as he smiles, slow and sleepy, and twists back a little further to press his forehead against the curve of Liam’s jaw.

“Hey, there, sword-breaker,” he murmurs, and feels his smile crack into a wide-open grin when Liam whuffs out a surprised, shuddering laugh, his relief palpable in the way that he leans up and forward so that he can bury his face in the side of Theo’s neck; Theo can feel Liam’s eyelashes brush his skin as Liam squeezes his eyes shut, his arm tightening briefly around Theo’s side before relaxing again.

The movement draws his attention back to Liam’s fingers—to his own—the both of them layered one over the other on top of one of the piece of Kira’s broken sword that Theo had fallen asleep holding. Liam had made incessant fun of him for it— _falling asleep holding a razor-sharp piece of_ metal _, that’s smart_ , he’d snarked—but he’d almost immediately placed his hand over Theo’s, his fingertips threading between Theo’s so that they were brushing the cool surface, too.

Now, Theo deliberately shifts his fingers underneath Liam’s own just for the way it causes heat to bloom over the tops of them; the slide of his skin against Liam’s. Liam makes a noise and slots their fingers back together, curling them, and then taps their joined knuckles against the skin-warm metal piece below them, the sound muffled and low; Theo feels it more than hears it.

“This is exactly what I was worried about, you know,” Liam tells him, his breath skating over the skin of Theo’s neck. He pauses. “Or, well, not _exactly_ this, but…”

He trails off, and sits up suddenly, his fingers sliding free of Theo’s and his warmth leaving Theo’s back; Theo immediately shivers in the absence of his heat. Theo turns over to look up at him, his brow furrowing. Liam meets his eyes for a second, his lips quirking in a crooked smile that’s really more of a grimace; more of a half-heartedly disguised wince.

“But you…” He picks back up on his explanation, “you finding a way to save everyone _but_ yourself.”

He looks away immediately after he’s said it, his head turning to the side opposite Theo and fixing there, though Theo doesn’t think he’s actually seeing the chipped skirting board, or beige tile. Theo feels his chest clench.

“Maybe it was my turn,” he finds himself offering. Liam looks sharply back over at him. Theo bites his lip, but. “I’d already been saved once, after all,” he points out softly, and then he gives Liam a flicker of an uncertain smile, and reaches briefly across his own chest to retrieve the broken piece of Kira’s sword, and hold it up between them, his fingers twisting it around and around. “Twice now, technically.”

Liam’s whole expression spasms, a helpless smile warring with incredulity warring with disbelief. “Was that a _line?_ ” He chokes out on a laugh, the sound of it more than a little jagged for all that it is, in fact, amused.

Theo just smiles back up at him and twists his grip on the piece of broken sword so that he can clench it in his fist. “No,” he says, quietly, firmly; unequivocally. “Just the truth.”

Liam stares at him, his mouth dropping open and the rest of his expression going raw, and then all at once he folds over Theo—folding Theo’s upraised arm between them, so that the piece of Kira’s broken sword clenched tight in Theo’s fist is pressed against Theo’s heart pressed against Liam’s—and kisses him. Theo presses up into it as best he can, dropping his mouth open for Liam’s tongue but doing it almost absently, his focus on the way that he can feel wetness on Liam’s cheeks against his own, leaking from Liam’s squeezed-shut eyes; he brings his free hand up to hold the back of Liam’s head carefully; gently.

Finally Liam pulls back. Theo searches his face for a few seconds, and then grins.

“Still,” he points out. “I think this puts our who’s-saved-who tally at like, you two, and me like, a million.”

Liam’s expression twists in comic outrage and he squawks out a disbelieving protest, rearing up to grab a pillow from the stack above them to smack it down at Theo’s face. Theo deflects it, laughing, and then again, and then he snakes his arms upwards in between Liam’s to yank him back down; to yank him back down into another kiss.

_**Nolan** _

“Nolan,” Theo calls the next morning, “stop hovering outside the doorway and just get in here, would you? Your anxiety is making my nose itch.”

Nolan jolts and cracks his hip on the chair positioned next to him, just outside Theo’s room, and scowls. He’s still rubbing his hip when he pivots around to turn into Theo’s room.

“Should you be saying that so loud?” Nolan points out petulantly. “People might wonder what the hell you mean.”

Theo just scoffs, leaned back on the bed and just finishing up pulling on the long-sleeved thermal shirt that someone had brought him. That someone had gone out and _bought_ him, Nolan is pretty sure; it’s just slightly too small, and Nolan, grinning, detects just a _hint_ of Mason’s clever fingers in the selection. Theo raises his eyebrows, apparently noticing Nolan’s amusement, and Nolan does his best to bite down on his smile.

It doesn’t really work.

“Where’s Liam?” Nolan asks, and he’d tried to ask it innocently but apparently _that_ hadn’t worked, either; Theo gives him an unimpressed look and rolls his eyes.

“Putting gas in my truck for the drive back to Beacon Hills,” he answers, then: “Where’s _Alec?_ ”

Nolan’s face _flames_. “How did you…?” He stammers, and then scowls again when Theo laughs, and laughs _loudly_. “Yeah, okay, _pot_ ,” Nolan mutters, looking pointedly at the bed.

Theo just shrugs, easy and unbothered. “Seriously, where is he? If he wants to ride with us back to Beacon Hills, he needs to get his ass here.”

“Oh,” Nolan says, then: “Downstairs, I think. Shohreh stopped by. She had some last-minute things she wanted to give him, since he’s going to have to make his decision about whether or not he wants to join a new pack, now that her emissary and Deaton broke the bonds between the remaining bound werewolves and Monroe’s,” he stumbles over her name, and then says more forcefully, “ _Monroe’s_ people.”

“Hmm,” Theo hums, acknowledging, his eyes going briefly distant as he twists around to look at— _out_ —the room’s window; listening, Nolan realizes. Listening to see if he could hear Shohreh and Alec, maybe.

“What do you think he’ll do?” Theo asks curiously, turning back to Nolan.

Nolan shrugs, aiming for nonchalance but still feeling something sharp bolt through his ribs. “Who knows,” he answers. “This is all pretty—pretty fresh, you know. But Scott said he can stay in Beacon Hills for as long as he needs while he figures it out, so.”

“So,” Theo agrees, and gives Nolan a flicker of a smile when Nolan sneaks a look up at him.

He also lets it go, and reaches for a small, fabric-wrapped bundle sitting on the nightstand next to the bed.

“Oh!” Nolan exclaims, and starts fumbling at his pockets; Theo freezes with his arms still outstretched, and looks over at him, brow furrowing. “Oh, that reminds me…”

He yanks his hand back out of his pocket, and uncurls his fist from around the long, white, sharp-ended bone he’d retrieved. Theo stares at it in his palm, naked shock taking over his face.

“Your clothes were pretty well ruined, right,” Nolan starts to babble. “And they cut you out of them when you first got here yesterday, but I—I remembered, and I just thought…I mean, I have your wallet and stuff, too, but I thought that this, that you’d want _this_ …”

He cuts off as Theo slowly comes forward, and reaches for the bone, his fingers trembling.

“It’s Josh’s, isn’t it?” Nolan can’t help asking; Theo flinches, his fingers hovering above Nolan’s palm jerking.

But: “Yeah,” he agrees after a second, and carefully picks up the bone. He twists his hand around so that he can hold it up in his own palm. “His fang.”

 _Why was it in Monroe’s warehouse? Why did you keep it?_ Nolan wants to ask, but what actually falls out of his mouth is, “Who’s Tara?”

Theo startles so fast and so hard that his hand clenches around Josh’s fang and—Nolan hissing as Theo bites off a pained sound and opens his fingers right back up—it slices right through his palm. The cut heals almost as fast as it’d appeared, and Theo sighs and turns for the nightstand—and the little box of facial tissue sitting on it—and scrubs his own palm clean before much more carefully wiping Josh’s fang off, and then sliding it into his pocket.

For a few seconds Nolan thinks Theo isn’t going to answer. He’s already opening his mouth to apologize when Theo suddenly says, “Tara was my sister.”

“Oh,” Nolan stammers, a voice taking up a shrieking warning inside his head. “Oh, okay.”

He means to leave it at that, but.

“Nolan,” Theo calls quietly. He looks tiredly up at Nolan when Nolan’s eyes snap reflexively to his. “Just ask.”

Nolan swallows, almost wanting to defer. But. _But_.

“What happened to her?” He asks quietly, already dreading the answer; already pretty sure that he _knows_ the answer.

Theo’s lips quirk, though the seeming-smile doesn't go anywhere near his eyes; like he can see what Nolan’s thinking. “I killed her,” he says, and looks Nolan straight in the eye as he admits it. But then his expression flickers, and he looks away as he adds softly, “Or I let her die, but. Either way.”

He sighs, and straightens up from where his shoulders had started to hunch in. “C’mon,” he orders, and gathers up the little fabric bundle he’d been reaching for before. “Liam’s back—” Theo must have heard his truck, “—and everyone’s getting ready to head, to head—” he stops, suddenly, stumbling over his words, and then he sucks in a sharp breath and finishes firmly, “—to head home.”

Nolan stares at him for a second, and then he smiles, helplessly, and nods.

Nolan ends up driving Theo’s truck back, Alec in the passenger seat and Liam and Theo in the back, Theo eventually giving up partway through the drive on embarrassment or propriety or basic safety procedures—or all of the above—and folding over to lay his head down in Liam’s lap. Liam startles, originally, his eyes flicking to Nolan’s in the rearview, and then his expression softens and he looks down at Theo, and strokes gentle fingers over his face.

Nolan smiles, helpless and a secret initially just between him and the road, and then he looks over at Alec, and smiles at him, too.

And then, two weeks later, he rolls open the front door into Alec’s borrowed apartment—Derek rolling his eyes a few days after they’d arrived back in Beacon Hills and going to dig through his available keys, Stiles back for spring break and sing-songing _Derek’s Home for Wayward Wolves_ under his breath and then completely failing to dodge in time when Derek had thrown a rubber keychain at his head—and calls out, “Alec?,” as he steps inside.

There’s a crash of noise from upstairs in the loft—Derek had given Alec the apartment he uses to store furniture and other abandoned items that his tenants leave behind, and it makes the whole place a bit of an obstacle course—and then Alec’s head pops over the railing.

“Hey!” He greets, sounding out-of-breath. He waves, dorkily enough, and Nolan can’t help but grin bemusedly up at him even as he waves just as dorkily back. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

Nolan raises his eyebrows. “The...barbecue? I told you I’d pick you up at three, and it is,” he says, making a show of pulling his phone out of his pocket and checking the time, “now three o’clock.”

“Oh!” Alec exclaims. “Oh, oh, crap. Sorry. I got,” he disappears from over the railing, his voice getting more and more muffled even as he keeps talking, “I got distracted, you know, and just lost—lost track of time.”

When he appears trotting down the stairs and then over to Nolan, he’s more than a little dusty, and holding a chaotic stack of papers that looks like it’s going to spill out of his arms at any moment. Nolan frowns lightly at him.

“Is that the information on the western packs that Shohreh gave you?” Nolan asks, reaching up reflexively to brush dust out of Alec’s hair. “What were you doing, reading them while doing major demolition?”

Alec makes a fac _e: ha, ha_. He also squints as Nolan’s brushing causes a cloud of dust to descend on his head. “No, I—I was, cleaning up a bit?” He explains, the end of his sentence tipping up into a question. He winces. “I mean, I was cleaning up a bit _while_ reading the files, you know. Just—just trying to pay Derek back a little while—while considering my options.”

Nolan feels his heart drop into his stomach even as he tries to paste a smile onto his face. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, well. That was nice of you.”

“Yeah,” Alec mutters, sneaking a look at Nolan. “Yeah, I guess.”

When they get to the Geyer-Dunbar household, the barbecue is in full-swing, and Nolan has to park his car a few houses down, the rest of the sidewalk space already taken up. Nolan can’t help glancing over at Alec as he’s turning off the engine, and finds Alec already looking back; Alec colors when their eyes meet, and scrambles out of the car, nearly dumping the stack of boxed pies in his lap as he does it. Nolan can’t help laughing as Alec yelps and just barely manages to recover, the boxes clutched tightly to his chest.

In the backyard, Ms. McCall and Jenna Geyer are stood protectively in front of the grill, seemingly purposefully blocking their partner and husband, respectively, from reaching it. The Sheriff and Parrish and Derek are all sat in chairs around a cooler with beers in their hands, talking easily and with one of the Sheriff’s boots perched pointedly on top of the cooler lid; Stiles and Liam keep glancing at it, while Lydia and Malia just roll their eyes, and keep talking with Mason and Corey. Farther out, Scott and Theo just keep tossing a lacrosse ball back and forth, Scott occasionally calling out corrections or suggestions to Theo’s form.

Nolan glances at the slight bulge he can see under the fabric of Theo’s shirt; Josh’s fang and a piece of Kira’s broken sword—appropriately blunted—threaded onto a chain and always, _always_ around Theo’s neck.

Nolan smiles softly, and follows Alec over to the folding table that someone had set up as Alec finds a place to set the boxes of pies amongst all the other food already piled high on top of it.

The barbecue goes until late, Dr. Geyer and the Sheriff eventually dragging out a wobbly metal fire pit into the center of the Geyer-Dunbar’s concrete porch, and Parrish leaning forward to light it with a touch of his briefly-glowing orange hand. Alec looks as fascinated as ever— _a hellhound?_ He’d whispered excitedly to Nolan the first time he’d found out. _Seriously, a hellhound?! That is, that is_ so cool _, you know, ironically_ —and Nolan grins, and burrows a little further into his hoodie; his own hoodie, Gabe’s carefully folded and tucked away in the corner of one of Nolan’s drawers.

The flames are starting to burn low by the time Scott wanders over to them, the rest of the McCall pack all talking quietly in little clumps or, like Corey and Mason, and Liam and Theo—Liam having climbed shamelessly into Theo’s lawn chair earlier in the night—drifting off. Nolan looks up from where he’d been absently studying Liam’s sleep-slack face pressed lightly into Theo’s shoulder as Scott picks his way over to the chair on Alec’s other side, and then drops into it.

“Hey,” Scott greets quietly, smiling at both of them. Nolan smiles back, but Alec’s attempt at one is significantly shakier.

“Is this—is this about me picking a pack?” Alec asks, clearly trying to whisper but nerves or _something_ turning into a stage-whisper at best. “I’m—I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, I just—”

“Hey, no,” Scott interrupts, holding up his hands and patting the air in a _calm down_ gesture. “No, I’m not—I’m not trying to hurry you or anything. It’s just,” he stops, and looks away briefly before continuing, “It’s just that I realized earlier today that Shohreh gave you all those like, orientation packets about those other packs—”

He stops, and grins, because that _had_ become the accidental running joke, like Alec was a nervous high school senior trying to settle on a college, and not an eighteen year-old werewolf trying to find a pack.

“—but I never, um. I never gave you one on _mine_ ,” he leans back a little, and gestures his arms wide at—at his family, and at his friends; at his family _and_ friends, before dropping them.

Alec’s mouth drops open simultaneously.

“You,” he starts, his tone just blank with surprise. “You’re serious?”

Scott winces at the same time that he smiles. “Yeah,” he assures Alec. “Yeah, of course. I figured you knew that was an option, but, you, uh. You know what they say about assuming, so.” He grimaces, self-deprecating. “So I just wanted to check that you knew that.”

Alec hadn’t, clearly. And neither, for that matter, had _Nolan_ ; he finds himself staring in equal shock at Scott, his heart doing the _opposite_ of what it’d done earlier and instead jamming itself up into his throat.

“Uh, so anyway,” Scott finally says, pushing through the silence. He slaps his hands onto his knees like he’s making to stand. “If you haven’t made up your mind, yet, then just know that if you want to be part of a pack—if you want to be part of _this_ pack, then—”

He cuts off, blinking, because Alec says, “Yes,” over-loud and startling a number of the nearby McCall pack members with the sudden volume; Nolan sees Theo’s eyes slit open across the way, dark and glimmering in the firelight. “Yes,” Alec repeats more firmly, even as he colors.

“Oh,” Scott replies, a seeming reflex. “Oh, okay.” Then his face breaks into a wide grin and he adds, more strongly, “That’s _great_. Okay!”

And Nolan thinks that’ll be the end of it—he’s prepared for that to be the end of it—except that Scott suddenly looks over at _him_. Nolan freezes.

But Scott just asks, “What about you, Nolan?,” easy and relaxed and still smiling.

“What?” Nolan replies, intelligently.

Scott just keeps looking at him, though his smile gentles; Nolan’s reminded, suddenly, of Argent’s spooked-horse quiet tone, that awful day at Shasta Regional Medical Center. “What about you?” Scott repeats, more quietly. “Do you, uh. Do _you_ want to be part of a—”

He hesitates, like it’s only now really hitting him what he’s asking; like he’s remembering Nolan at the police station, Nolan caught on the holding cell security footage taunting Jiang: _don’t you mean your_ pack _?_ Nolan winces.

But Scott—Scott swallows, and when he speaks again all the hesitation is gone from his voice. “Do _you_ want to be part of a pack?” He asks, and then, some of the solemnity falling away from his face as he blinks, and clarifies, “Uh, this pack, I mean. If that—if that wasn’t clear.”

And Nolan—Nolan barely has to glance at Alec, or Theo across the way.

“Yes,” he says, firmly, and looks back at Scott just in time to see Scott’s eyes flare red as Scott smiles, wide and crinkle-eyed and pleased.

“Yes,” he repeats helplessly, and catches Alec when Alec _whoops_ —startling Stiles badly enough this time that Stiles nearly falls out of his chair—and half-lunges, half-falls out of his own lawn chair and into Nolan’s in a hug that’s really more of an affectionate tackle.

“Yeah,” he tells Scott one last time, but he’s looking across the way at Theo as he says it. “Yeah, I want to be part of this pack.”

Theo grins.

_**Theo** _

Theo wakes up in darkness.

There’s an initial, helpless surge of adrenaline as he opens his eyes, but it almost immediately fades. For one thing, he can see the fire pit directly in front of himself, the last vestiges of the fire burning into embers, and for another; Liam shifts and mumbles sleepily against Theo’s chest, his heartbeat pounding just inches away from Theo’s own.

“What is it?” Liam asks a half-second or so later, blinking his own eyes reluctantly open and then squinting up at Theo’s face.

“Heard something,” Theo replies softly, aware of the other sleeping McCall pack members around, including Alec and Nolan across the way; with their apparently official induction into the McCall pack out of the way, they’d given up on pretending that they didn’t want to spend every second of the day helplessly glued to each other and had, in fact, just helplessly glued themselves to each other, Nolan asleep on Alec’s chest. Theo yawns. “Crackling log, maybe.”

Liam hums and twists some against Theo’s chest to look where he’s looking. “That was,” he declares, quietly enough to not wake the others but still very much an announcement as he looks at Alec and Nolan curled up together, “one of the most disgustingly sweet things I’ve ever seen, earlier.”

Theo just smirks. “Don’t front. I felt you hiding that grin against my chest.”

Liam punches him lightly in the side. Then, suddenly, he twists around so that he’s raised up a little above Theo and looking down at him. His expression is abruptly unreadable, the rest of him abruptly still.

“What about you?” He asks, apropos of nothing. Theo frowns up at him, confused. “Were you waiting for Scott to extend you an official, welcome-to-the-pack invitation?”

Theo feels his expression smooth out; feels the reflexive, tight ball of anxiety that had twisted itself up in his throat twist itself right back out the opposite way. “Why, do I need one?” He asks, his voice deceptively easy; deceptively curious. “Did someone kick me out of the pack when I wasn’t looking?”

Liam’s face blanks with shock, and then all at once it scrunches up, his mouth pulling into a grin so wide that it’s crinkling his eyes, rounding his cheeks. He puts a hand on Theo’s chest—right over Josh’s fang, and the piece of Kira’s broken sword—and leans down.

“Let ‘em try,” he challenges against Theo’s lips, and then he kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential TW: As a result of his injury, subsequent poisoning, and existing trauma, Theo briefly loses the ability to distinguish between his dreams and reality. His disassociation gets addressed in the subsequent scenes.

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback loved! If you liked, please consider a comment or a [reblog](https://eneiryu.tumblr.com/post/614497462241099776/between-the-mountains-and-the-valley-we-built-a)!


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